The Nelson Evening Mail. TUSEDAY, JULY 3, 1866.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 102, 3 July 1866, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUSEDAY, JULY 3, 1866.

Mr. Cox brought the information to Nelsonyabout 2' o'clock; to-day! pt_ia. : the~ Search PartyiMd fp^ndj' the; body ; bf Jaime Rattle, .the whaler. The body was found about 9 : o'clock/ after ;threP" -qdatter of an : hotir's : search. Itwas buried in { a 'spot from 150 to ' 200 yards below the track. It was barely two feet under the ground, 1 and was covered over with some old rottfen ; logs'- of wood. ' It is a good deal decomposed.' The Search 1 , Party,", will, we are" informed, bring the body to Nelson this evening! We hope we have -got to the end ofthe number" slaughtered on the Mauugai'apu, by this atrocious and bloodthirsty gang. •'•■--•* No doubt the community is indebted to some extent to Sullivan for knowledge which it could not otherwise have gained, and that it will be considered just 'that he' should be entitled to the advantages 'held' out by the Government to any 'of the accomplices, who should make a confession. It is clear however that Sullivan hadit in his power to prevent the murder of. the Deep Creek party had he. chosen to prevent the execution of the murderous plot. One word to Jeryis would have led to their, being put on their guard, and saved them from the awful fate that awaited him. Sullivan did not take any steps to prevent the murder. Ou the other hand he was a party to all the arrangements that preceeded it ; he assisted to stick the men up, and he shared in the booty that was extracted from the bleeding victims. Pie was jovial enough whilst spending' this money in the hotels in Nelson, and did not confess at last from compunction of conscience or remorse, but iv order to save his neckfrom the halter. Whilst the community is .greatly benefitted by Sullivan's confessiou, they will not fail to regard him as a criminalof the highest order. He has not the powerful physique and desperate energy of Burgess andKelly, but from his own confessiou, he is one of those skulking criminals who has the tact to set more euergefcic men in motion/ participate in the most appalling deeds of villauy, chuckle over the spoil dragged from the palpitating sufferers, and then meanly make a merit of turning informer,' on discovering the fate : that awaits him. Let him have all the advantages to which his confession entitles him, but he will have very little public sympathy, because tp the crime of being the associate and approver of some of the foulest murderers whose history has stained colonial records, he adds the». meanness of turning informer, not to benefit society but to escape the punishment which as an associate in criminal enterprise he so richly deserves. Had the'cohfession about the intention to adopt a wholesale system ■of robbing and poisoning been made at an earlier period, , some merit might have been due to the person who confessed, but there can be little I sympathy for the wretch who confesses with the rope around his neck, not with a view to put society on its guard, but to prolong for a while his justly forfeited life.