Important from the East Coast

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 82, 8 July 1867, Page 159

Important from the East Coast

MURDER OF MR BENNETT WHITE AND A NATIVE MAILMAN.

The arrival of the Star of the South this morning has placed us in posses sion of Auckland files to the 5th inst. From a second edition of the New Zealand Herald, published on the evening of the 4th, we clip the following:—

By the arrival of the p.s. Sturt this afternoon, we have the sad intelligence of the murder of Mr Bennett White and the native mailman Patrick (an Arawa) between Opotiki and Whakatane, by the Hau-haus on Saturday last. We hasten to give the following particulars:—

The intelligence was conveyed to Mr Clark, C.C., and a body of 150 armed men were at once sent down to scour the beach, and succeeded in finding the two bodies, which were frightfully mutilated. The heads were severed from the trunks, the eyes had been gouged out, and probably eaten Bennett White’s head was found on the beach some distance from the body. Another armed party was sent out to follow the tracks of the murderers, who belong to the same tribe as the ferryman at Ohiwa, who is supposed to be a participator in the affair, by giying a signal of their approach along the coast. The Sturt, upon the receipt of the news, was at once despatched by Mr Clark with the foregoing intelligence for His Excellency the Governor, in expectation of falling in with the Charybdis, but passing that vessel during the darkness of last night, Captain Fairchild brought the despatch on to Dr. Pollen, agent for the Government. The Sturt at once returns with despatches.

In the same journal of the 5th inst. we find the following additional information:—

Another man, named Lawrence, was missing, but a report had reached Tauranga just as the Sturt left, that he had turned up all right. We are sorry, however, that the report was not very well authenticated. Major St. John had gone out with the troops. Our readers will remember that Bennett White was on board the cutter Kate when Mr Fulloon and other persons were murdered, and was spared by the Maoris at that time. He gave evidence on the trial of the murderers, and it is more than probable that his life has been taken as utu for the lives of those who were executed for Fulloon’s murder. Of what use it can be to order out 150 troops to march them back again we do not know, for as for supposing that they will do more than come upon old camp fires or deserted villages is not in the order of things. Such a murder as that which has now occurred is probably the act of some small band only of fanatics, and will be heard with abhorrence and disgust by the bulk of the native race. If it is really intended to capture these murderers, it will be done, not by marching a company and a half of troops through the country, but by ascertaining the portion of the tribe, or even, the names of the guilty party if possible, and trusting their

capture or punishment to a party of thorough bushmen, such as the elite of the Forest Rangers, and a few Arawas, to which tribe the murdered mailman belongs, under such men as Majors Von Tempsky and Jackson for leaders. The backwoodsmen of America would have known how to deal with the miscreants who keep the East Coast' unsafe, and would long since have followed up and routed them out of fastnesses quite as inaccessible as any in New Zealand. That the murder has any political significance we do not believe. It is no more than might have been looked for in that particular district, and as occurring to Mr White, who must have been a marked man amongst the Hauhaus. The Lord Ashley is due today, and we shall probably receive additional particulars by her.