Crime in Melbourne.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 350, 12 September 1889, Page 2

Crime in Melbourne.

Melbourne. August 23. fl A young light-haired man, named Harry Haines, was called up for sentence this morning in the Criminal Court. Mr Justice Williams, in passing sentence, said: Harry Haines, the jury have found you guilty of indecent assault on a child 10 years of age, and two days after the commission of that offence you attempted to repeat it. You are a married man; you have a young wife, and by that young wife you have had two children. They are all living with you in your own house, and yet you indecently assault a child who came on a visit to yonr place of residence. I don’t think anything I may say could more dearly demonstrate the horrible nature of this outrage. The result of that outrage upon the first occasion, and the attempt to repeat it two days after, has been that this child has been physically injured to an extent which has necessitated careful medical treatment of her from that day up to the present time. In addition to the physical injury you have inflicted there is no calculating the extent of moral injury you have inflicted upon her in her future life. It is a most lamentable fact to me to think that the present state of the law on divorce ie such that that youhg woman, your wife, is bound to you as her husband for the rest of her life, whether she likes it or not. Thia is only one instance out of very many that have occurred before mo showing the dire necessity for alteration in ths present state of our divorce law. I shall pass a very severe sentence upon you. not only In punishment of the crime you have committed npon this infant child, hut aa a deterrent to others. However, it is a satiataoton to nn to know and observe that crims*ot this kind " n w vary seldom occur. It Is a source of eatisfaotlon to me to know that, and I don't hesitate to say that the reason for the great diminution in tbis crime is to be found in ths severity of the sentences that have been passed. I am no advocate of the lash; but your own counsel rightly observed, in the course ot your defence, that if you really committed the offence you vary richly deserved the lash. But I am no advocate for the lash, except in oases where the infliction of the lash wi)l not injure a man in feelings of self-respsot. The outrage you committed on this child, and the circumstances which surround it. show that yon have no self-respect to lose. You have wronged this young child, you have wronged your young wife, you have wronged your twq infant children. What self-respect can you then possibly have to lose 1 Nona whatever. The sentence of the court is that you be imt prisoned in Her Majesty's gaol at Melbourne for four years on the flrat count, and three years on the eecond count, the sentences to be oumnletive, making seven yeare la all. Tou ere also to be three times privately whipped with the oat.o'nine tails, such whippings tC consist ot 15 lashes each, to he inflicted on August 30. September 27. and October 25 1 the lest three days of every alternate month in the last year to be passed by you in solitary confinement. Ths sentence fell liks an avalanche on the prisoner, He looked per< feotly crestfallen, and staggered under the severe observations made by the judge.