The Atherstone Times. — 1879-03-22 (Atherstone, Warwickshire, England)

THE YOUNG MAN  HABRON.  The case of William Hebron should not be allowed to pass into the region of forgetfulness, until the lesson it teaches as to the unwisdom of convicting -especially for murder upon !circumstantial evidence. Here is the case of a man being brought within a hair s breadth of the gallows who was as innocent of the crime for which he had been convicted as anyone who reads thesealMes He was sentenced to death en the 27th of November, 1876 He was respited on the 19th of the follow. log December, tut had to wait until the next February before the sentence was commuted. What an awful ten weeks He seems, however, to have hada steady faith faith that justice would be done him. "I never bogeyed,' he often repeats, " that I could be brought in guilty, and when I was condemned I felt surs I could not be hanged, for, as I told the priest, God knows, you know, and I know that I am innocent of this crime, and an innocent man will never be allowed to suffer for the guilty.'" Who will not feel a thrill of sympathetic horror, as he reads the following •• It wai a very near thing, sir. Flanigan and I were to have been hanged together, and Marwood had actually been to look at me to measure my size and weiz,ht. Luckily for me I did not know who the man was who looked at me so curiously till afterwards. I should have felt very had had I known it at the time. But it was a dreadful ten weeks, and if it had not been for the pr est I do not know how I should have lived on at all. As it was, I prayed day and night, and never quite lost hope." The commutation was followed by eight months of oakum-picking at Milbank, and he was then removed to Portland. Habron says he felt the change very much. He says :—" Three pounds cf oakum is a heavy job, sir, I can tell you, and is mighty severe on the hands; hut it Is nothing to the work in the West Quarry at Portland, where I have been for a long time past. And what is worst of all, I have learnt nothing in prison in all this long time. Just think, sir. that I was arrested on the let of August, 1876, and have never breathed' the free air, nor known the taste of tobacco, since then till this moment. Aild all lost. Some lucky prisoners are allowed to learn a trade, and I begged to be allowed to learn tailoring or shoemaking, that I might have a trade when I came out; but only I and my good friends in Manchester believed I should ever come out ; and as I was young and a labourer I Was kept hard at the outdoor work. Nothing makes me so sorry as thinking of my lost time. Here I come out of prison justas ignorant and helpless as when I went in, while other men, not supposed to be so strong as I am, have learned how to get their bread without lifting and dragging tons weight." It seems that he knew nothing definite of what was going on in the outer world, and was altogether unacquainted with the fact that the notorious scoundrel, Peace, had, before he died, made the statement which was to lead to such happy results. There were rumours that something had been said. by Peace which would some way affect a prisoner, and hence in thelteeth of the most stringent regula:dons. C 1, 547 went daily to his heavy task at the West Quarry with a heart filled with renewed hope. and when his hour of deliverance came, accepted it as his right, `• as a thing which might happen at any time, and must happen sooner or later." Habron does not see anything extraordinary in his release, albeit it depended on the sense of justice in an assassin on the brink of another world. He persists ir thinking it quite natural that aasasins should c-xtfess, that homat men