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Show NO REPRIEVE FOR CASEMENT Former Knight Embraces Religion, Re-ligion, Bid sFarewell to Relatives Rela-tives and Prepares to Meet Doom. London, Aug. 2, C:3S p. m. Lord Robert Cecil today authorized tho Associated Press to state that the Roger Casement would be executed tomorrow. There will ho no reprieve, re-prieve, Lord Robert declared. Gavin Duffoy, counsel forthe former for-mer knight, is responsible for the statement that the condemned man lias embraced, tho Catholic religion since the passing of the death sentence, sen-tence, having requested instructions and dally ministrations from a priest visiting his cell. Air. Duffey declared also that the prisoner had now seen and bade farewell fare-well to his nearest relatives who called and spent some time with him it the jail. The doomed man is reported re-ported as unusually cheerful, bearing himself as one unconcerned. Tho execution sot for 9 o'clock tomorrow to-morrow morning will bo private In explanation of the government's refusal to reprieve Roger Casement, Lord Robert Cecil, parliamentary un-dor-secretary for foreign affairs and minister of war trade, gave to the Associated Press tho following statement: state-ment: "No doubt of Casement's guilt exists. ex-ists. No one doubts that the court and jury arrived at the right verdict. ver-dict. The only ground for a reprieve would be political expediency, a difficult dif-ficult ground to put forward In that this country never could strain the lav. to punish a man for tho same reason that it could not strain the law to let one off. Murder of Unarmed People. ''The Irish rebellion began with the murder of unarmed people, both soldiers sol-diers and police. No grievance justified jus-tified It and it was purely a political movement organized by a small section sec-tion of Irish people who still hate England and was assisted by Germany. Ger-many. "There was, and still is, in this country the greatest possible indignation indigna-tion among the people. There is no doubt that Casement did everything possible to assist the rebellion in connection with tho Germans. There can be doubt that he was moved by enmity for this country. "The contention that ho landed In Ireland for the purpose of prevent-in- the rebellion in demonstrably false. No such assertion ws made by counsel at the trial. Casement Malignant. "Casement was much more malignant malig-nant and hostile to this country than were the loaders of the rising who were caught with arms in their hands. He visited military prisons in Germany with the intention of persuading per-suading Irish soldiers to throw off their allegiance. All sorts of promises prom-ises were made for the improvement of the conditions of these men to join the Irish logion, An enormous majority thus approached refused and thereafter were subjected to increased increas-ed hardships by the Germans. "From among these Irish soldiers a number has since been repatriated as hopeless invalids and they subsequently subse-quently died. They look upon Casement Case-ment as their murderer. "Nor Is there any ground, public or private, so far as we know, which can quote in mitigation of Casement's crime and I do not think any government govern-ment doing its duty could interfere with the sentence which has been passed on him."' nn |