THE DAILY PROVINCE OCTOBER 30, 1914 p.1&2 MEWA SINGH MUST PAY THE DEATH PENALTY ------------------- Slayer of Inspector Hopkinson Convicted in Short Order by Jury Today. ------------------- Death Sentence to Be Carried Out at New Westminster on January 11. ------------------Said He Sacrificed His Life Because the Temple Was Defiled by Shooting. ------------------Mewa Singh, the self-confessed slayer of Immigration Inspector W.C. Hopkinson was this morning tried and found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged on January 11. He made no denial of the offence. “Am I on oath? I am guilty,” he said on the indictment being read over to him, but following the usual custom in murder trials, the Crown entered a plea of not guilty and proceeded to prove the charge by witnesses. The whole trial lasted but two hours and the jury was out only five minutes. The feature of the trial was a lengthy written statement made by the accused of the motives which led him to commit the crime. In it he protested that he had always been a man of prayer and that the shooting of Bhag Singh and others in the temple, which had made Bhag Singh’s little daughter an orphan and the defilement of the temple by the shooting, had burned into his soul. He alleged that the late Inspector Hopkinson had tried to get him to swear falsely to secure the freedom of Bela Singh, charged with the temple shooting and protested that he gave up his life for what he believed to be a righteous cause in the hope and belief that the sacrifice would benefit his fellow Hindus in Vancouver. Mewa Singh’s Swan Song. THE DAILY PROVINCE OCTOBER 30, 1914 p.1&2 Mewa, whose dark lustrous eyes and drawn features give him the appearance of a religious devotee, had lost the confident bearing he had on the day of his arrest. He appeared cowed before the crowded courtroom, in which only four of his compatriots appeared in the thronged gathering. He kept his turbaned head bowed and his eyes downcast and though proficient in English seemed to find relief in falling back on his native Punjab dialect in talking to Mrs. Dalton, the court interpreter. At the close of his statement he made a last request that the little daughter of Bhag Singh, the priest, now motherless and fatherless, should be brought in to hear what he had to say. When the little girl could not be found, he startled the courtroom, where the nerves of the spectators were on edge by bursting into a religious chant. “He wishes you all to know,” said Mrs. Dalton after the prisoner had spoken to her, “That the words he has sung are from the Sikh scriptures and say that it is the duty of a good man to give his life for a good cause and the condition of the Hindus in Vancouver is as bad as when the Mohammedans ruled India.” The intoned scripture proved to be Mewa’s swan song for shortly after the jury brought in its verdict. “I killed him. I did it for a good cause. Be merciful to me,” he said to the judge with calmness and resignation. In the lengthy statement which his counsel, Mr. E. M. N. Woods read to the court at prisoner’s request, it stated in part: “My name is Mewa Singh. Up till today I have been a man that has always had my prayers, a God fearing man. There are no words in my language to express the sorrow and troubles and worries I have had to put up with here in Vancouver.” “All of us living Sikhs when we go to the Sikh Temple it is with the object of saying our prayers, but these others have gone to ruin us altogether, and others going in to the Temple and firing there destroyed the goodness of the Temple, spoilt it by having them shooting and the men being killed there.” “In the Temple that day the shooting was done by Bela Singh. That day the police caught hold of me and tightened me and said: “Did you do the shooting too?” And then when they caught hold of Bela Singh, Bela Sing said: ‘Why I have done this shooting in the Temple, Mr. Reid and Mr. Hopkinson are well aware of it. They know why I have done this shooting.’ At the time that Bela Singh did that shooting we were saying prayers that anybody hearing them would have warmed their hearts together and THE DAILY PROVINCE OCTOBER 30, 1914 p.1&2 come to God with hearing those words and Bela Singh first of all shot Bhag Singh and he has two little children, without thought Bela Singh killed him and leaving those two little infants without a mother, Bhag Singh had no wife just the two little children. Seeing that badness done there, the killing of the innocent people has burned into my heart.” “We as soldier men have to swear on the Sikh Bible, which is held in great respect and the Gratha Sahba is wrapped up in valuable silks to keep it sacred. It is precious and of great value and we treat it in that respectful way. Before Bela Singh did the shooting in the Temple two or three hundred of our Sikhs would go to that temple. Since then they have fallen off and they have no respect for it and ten men do not go now. “All this trouble and all this shooting Mr. Reid and Mr. Hopkinson are responsible for, and I shot Mr. Hopkinson out of honor and principle to my fellowmen and for my religion. I could not bear to see these troubles going on any longer. “There is no justice issued out to us by the judges, nor the police, nor any of them and that is why I am giving my life to show this matter up. I understand God’s ways and am a God fearing man. I say my prayers for an hour in the morning and half an hour at night. When I know that this wrong has been done I can not expect God to bless me if my prayers were not accepted. I know my prayers have been accepted, and God knows between the right and the wrong. In our prayers it says that we must see the right done. We can not shut our eyes and see wrong done.” In his statement Mewa Singh said that after his arrest at Sumas on a charge of having guns in his possession he was urged by Bela Singh, Mr. Reid and Mr. Hopkinson, with promises of immunity, to swear that the guns were for the use of Bhag Singh, Balwant Singh and Hernan. I told Mr. Hopkinson I can not. I am a God fearing man. I may be cut into little pieces, but I can not say that. Then Bela Singh said to me: “Give Mr. Hopkinson some dollars and get it settled.” I said I will give you the dollars but a lie I will not tell. I do not mind paying the money, but lies I will not tell. The case where I was charged they had it put aside and dismissed. I paid $40 to Bela Singh. Mr., Hopkinson was present.” Mewa said that although he had paid a fine in one case and the other was dismissed, he had been continually approached with requests to incriminate Bhag Singh, Balwant Singh, Herman and Raheim.’ THE DAILY PROVINCE OCTOBER 30, 1914 p.1&2 “Mr. Hopkinson said, ‘When you went to Sumas was Raheim at the Sikh temple or not? Can not you tell us that?’ I said, ‘I do not know.’ Mr. Hopkinson again reminded me by saying ‘I have got you off five years about those pistols and you can not do this little thing for me. Come along and make this false statement. Do not be afraid.’ Then Bela Singh turned to Mr. Hopkinson and said, ‘Mr. Hopkinson, this is a God-fearing man who says his prayers. Do not make him tell any lies.’ After they wrote the letter I would not sign it or have anything to do with it, and Bela Singh and I went out to my home. This is the whole story; it stops here.” Mr. Taylor ignored the suggestions in the document and confined his crossexamination to two questions. “Was it not owing to Mr. Hopkinson’s efforts on your behalf that the charge at Sumas was withdrawn?” “Yes,” agreed Mewa. “And after the trial did you not go to this gentleman (pointing to Mr. W. H. D. Ladner, who conducted the prosecution at Sumas) and express to him your gratitude for the kindness of Inspector Hopkinson?” “Hopkinson has told me to go to him and say that,” replied the Hindu. The evidence of the crown at the trial was very brief, and none of the crown witnesses were crossexamined by the defence. Chief Janitor James McCann of the Courthouse staff who disarmed and seized Mewa as he stood over Hopkinson’s body outside the Assize Court; W.A. Campbell and Paul Cadwell, witnesses of the shooting were the principal witnesses. Dr. G.F. Curtis, who conducted the postmortem, testified that two of the four bullet wounds were fatal, and Dr. J. R. Smith, who was in the Courthouse at the time of the shooting, testified that death occurred within three minutes of the shooting.