Our Wellington Letter

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 143, 8 June 1889, Page 3

Our Wellington Letter

(FBO3I OTTR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Wellington, June 7. The dastardly murdbr which took place last week near Kaiwhara has caused a great deal of excitement in this city. This is the first murder that has taken place here for nearly ten years, the last being where a young man named Millar killed his father and mother and then committed *uicide. From the medioai evidence it appears that the body of deceased, in this tragedy, not only contained a -charge of gunshot, but was also stabbed in about a dozen places, about the neck and shoulders, -which points to the suspicion that the ■diabolical act must have been committed in a spirit <if revenge, and not ior plunder. Mr Hawkins, the victim of the outrage, waß a well-to-do farmer, and much respected by Europeans and natives alike, so that it is iard to conceive what really could have been the motive for the crime. A neighbor of the deceased's, an Italian of the name of Chemis, and with whom Hawkins had a law suit recently, has been arrested on suspicion, but the police are very reticent as to :what evidence Las come to their knowledge to lead to the arrest. Bo far the only published evidence^to couneet Chemis with the crime is the fact -of his having threatened to be level -with .the deceased, and also that a -double-Tjarrelled gun was fouad in his house. A trial of the electric light was made it few mornings ago from 2 a.m. until 4 "a.m., and was considered highly successful, the whole of Thorndon being lighted so brilliantly as to make it possible to read a newspaper in the middle of the roadway. The contractor hopes to have everything in going order by the middle of this month, so that we shall not hear so many complaints from members of Parliament, who sometimes, after taking too freely of "lemonade" at "Bellamy's," have run foul of some telegraph pole on their homeward journey, and laid the blame at the door of the rt?ra gas light, with which our streets have been honoured for some yean. There was a large crowd at the Opera House on Monday night to hear Mr Geo. Fisher's address to his constituents. It was expected on all sides that he would open a heavy cannonade against his late colleagues, but with the exception of firing off a few squibs in reference to his secession from the Ministry, nothing sensational happened, Mr Fisher evidently saving himself for a hand to hand fight when Parliament meets.