People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1896 — SENTENCED TO DEATH [ARTICLE]

SENTENCED TO DEATH

UITLANDER LEADERS CONDEMNED AT PRETORIA. Five Are to Suffer for Complicity in the Jameson Raid —John Haya Hammond, .the American, One of the Victims — Their Fate Keats with Kruger. Pretoria, April 29.—Sentence of death has been pronounced upon Messrs. Phillips, Hammond, Farrar and Rhodes of the Johannesburg reform committee, who recently pleaded guilty of high treason. John Hays Hammond, one of the members of the reform committee condemned to death, is an American. Besides these, sixty other members of the reform committee have been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, a fine of £2,000 ($10,000) and three years’ subsequent punishment. They include all the leading men on the Rand — Barney Barnato’s nephew, Joel; the Turkish oonsul, Bettelheim; ex-At-torney General of the Cape; J. W. Leonard, and tijie following American-.: Captain Mein, J. S. Curtis, Clement Lawley Lingham and H. J. King. What is more significant is that they mostly have relations with other South African states. London, April 28. —The secretary of state for the colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, announced in the house of commons Tuesday that the five leaders of the reform committee of Johannesburg—J. H. Hammond, Francis Rhodes, George Farrar, Lionel Philips mid Charles Leonard —had been condemned to death. Mr. Chamberlain added that upon hearing the news he cabled to the Governor of Cape Colony, Sir Hercules Robinson, to communicate the following to President Kruger: “The government has just learned that the sentence of death has been passed upon the five leaders of the reform committee. They can feel no doubt that your honor will commute sentence and have assured parliament of their conviction that this is your honor’s intention.” W. J. Galloway, conservative member for southwest Manchester, asked whether the law under which the leaders of the Johannesburg reform committee were tried does not provide for the confiscation of their property in the event of conviction, and not for the imposing of the death penalty. Mr. Chamberlain said he was unable to answer the question. PETITION FOR HAMMOND. It la Signed at Washington by Senators and Congressmen. Washington, April 29. —Great interest was shown here in the case of John Hays Hammond, and telephones in the newspaper offices were kept busy answering questions touching the accuracy of the report that he had been sentenced to death. Senator Stewart, a persdhal friend of Mr. Hammond, prepared a petition in his behalf, which he had circulated among senators and members of the house. Mr. Mahany (N. Y.) created a flurry in the house by asking for the immediate consideration of the following: “Resolved, By the house of representatives that whereas the cable report announces that John Hays Hammond, otherwise described as Eugene Hammond, an American citizen, has been condemned to death for treason in the Transvaal, the secretary of state take immediate action to safe-guard the interests of said Hammond and exert the friendly offices of that department in his behalf, if the secretary of state, in his judgment, deems such interposition advisable.” Mr. McCreary (dem., Ky.), ex-chair-man of the foreign affairs committee, thought the state department would take such steps as were necessary for the protection of American interests, without instructions from the house. He therefore objected. The resolution was then, at Mr. Mahany’s request, referred to the foreign affairs committee.