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THE ABERAVON CONVICTS.j

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THE ABERAVON CONVICTS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRINCIPALITY. SIR,—Your advocacy of the cause of the unfortunate Martin, if it did not obtain the loud plaudits of your bre- thren of the principality, did ensure to you a more gratifying result—the commutation of his sentence to transportation for life. But has no thought entered your mind about the four unfortunate Welshmen, Glamorganshire men, who were at the same time at Cardiff sentenced each to ten years' transportation, for having in a drunken frolic robbed and maltreated an old man of this parish, at Aberavon ? Their character prior to this was unimpeachable, and their sorrow for the act when sober, was truly heart-breaking; the crime we know was great, and even drunkenness could not extenu- ate it; but surely if you consider it well, you must consider the punishment much more severe than that of hanging for two murders. Four men, young men, nay almost boys, 11 expatriated to a savage soil to encounter and endure every 0 y hardship for ten years! Can nothing be done to mitigate their punishment ? Will the men of Glamorgan behold these four young men lost, for ever, without one interceding hand being raised in their behalf P Maesteg, 8th August, 1848. A. COSMOPOLITE. [The Editor was not in court when the trial of these con- victs took place, and can therefore form an opinion from the printed evidence only. The attack seemed to be most wan- ton and cruel, and that it had been committed in a "drun- ken frolic is a great aggravation. People have no business to get drunk, and then plead their voluntary madness as an excuse for their brutal cruelties. Least of all do we think that the fact of offenders being Welshmen, and natives of some particular district in the principality, should excite our compassion. As to the severity of the punishment we have no opinion. to offer. We shall not be sorry to hear of its being commuted. We believe that many of the jury who tried the prisoners have agreed to memorialize the Secretary of State for comiiutatioii of sentence, and if their efforts should suc- ceed, we hope the fate of the prisoners, whatever it may be, will prove a solemn warning to all to abstain from "drunken frolics."—ED.]

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