BARRIER ISLAND MURDERERS ON THE VOYAGE.

Kumara Times, Issue 3125, 8 November 1886, Page 3

BARRIER ISLAND MURDERERS ON THE VOYAGE.

ihe account or the voyage of the Great Barrier Island murderers, from Sydney to Auckland, in, the Waihora, observes a writer in the Dunedin Herald, reads very much like a page from Bret Harte. It certainly must have been a unique sight, that game of four-handed euchre—though we do not exactly see why it should be “painful in the extieme to the'spectators to see them immersed in the petty chances of the cards” instead of thinking of their latter end tor some other equally cheerful subject for meditation. Prisoners who are to he hangod are allowed a pipe, and when they used to go in triumph from Hewgate to the gallows the carl used regularly to stop to give the prisoner one last liquor-up. 'So we need not grudge these men their euchre, but rather rejoice that they are able to enjoy it, as any man ought to do whether he is going to be hanged or not. Mark Twain tells of a shipwreck during the initial stage of which a party of cardplayers kept steadily to their game, and finally as they sank the voice of one of them was heard shouting “Remember, boys, I played the ace!” Doubtless they resumed their game in another place; that is if not too much incommoded by the heat.