A CLEVER CONSPIRACY.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1043, 1 February 1882, Page 2

A CLEVER CONSPIRACY.

♦ The case of Frederic G. Barton suggets the desirablity of a change in the Home Office system. It 1876 Barton ■was sentenced to ten years years' penal servitude for burglary. In prison he met with George Smith who had been sentenced to fifteen years ' penal servitude for receiving stolen property. Smith's sentence was about to expire, and Barton told him he was coming into a large sum of money, and that if he obtained his release from the Home Secretary, his (Barton's) father would pay him for it Smith petitioned the Home Secretary for the release of Barton on the ground that Barton was deaf and had pleaded guilty to three indictments when he only in intended to pleaded guilty to one of them. Such a mistake seems to us impossible, but the Home Secretary was convinced, and the ex-convict, addressed as George Smith, Esq., was officially informed that his petition had been successful, and Barton was released after undergoing only three years' penal servitude. Barton enlisted, reached the rank of recruiting-sergeant and then committed a burglary in the house of the Rev. F. Cook, where he had been a servant before his first conviction. Barton averred that Smith had got up the case against him because he had not been paid the promised reward for procuring the pardon but the police proved the guilt of the prisoner, and Sir G. Bramwell sentence him to three years' penal servitude and seven years ' police supervision. — London paper.