The New Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 431, 1 June 1850, Page 2

The New Zealander.

SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1850.

In our last we gave the most recent intelligence from the South— viz., that contained in the Wellington papers of the 18th of May. We now return to our files, however, to sum up and extract various matters which, though the dates are a little older, will, notwithstanding, be new to most of our readers. Lieutenant-Governor Eyre and his young Bride had a passage from Auckland as rough as if the elements themselves had conspired to mar the tranquility of their honeymoon. The Government brig Victoria sailed from our port on the 1 5th April, and touched at Tauranga, to leave Mr. Chapman at his mission-home ; thenceforward, almost to the end of her passage, she encountered severe weather and contrary winds, " having split her sails, shifted her ballast, stove in her bulwarks, and carried away a quarter boat." She arrived at Wellington on the 2nd of May, so much injured that, although the Judge required her services to proceed to Nelson, it was necessary that she should remain in port to be repaired and refitted before going there. She sailed however, on the Bth May. On the 13th of May a Government Gazette was issued, the principal contents of which were, a republication of the Governor-in-Chief's Proclamations respecting the establishment of a Colonial Bank of Issue— (a subject, on which, by the bye, our Wellington contemporaries are contending, as they usually do on almost every public question, — the Independent attacking and the Spectator vindicating the measure): — the notice of a Levee to be held on the Queen's birth day ; and an invitation for Tenders for a Maori Feast on the same occasion ; the supply to consist of bread, pork, and sweetened tea, and to be provided for 400 natives: — and a proclamation declaring the Lock-up 1 in Dunedin (Otago) to be a Public Gaol for the Colony. More important, however, is the Comparative Abstract Statement of the Wellington Revenue and Expenditure for the Quarters ending 31st March, 1819, and 31st March, 1850, respectively. This does not present, so far as it goes, a favourable view of the financial affairs of New Munster, the Total Ordinary Revenue for the March Quarter last year, having been £4,981 9s. lid., while on the corresponding quarter this year it amounted only to £3,116 7s. 6d., being a decrease of £1,865 2s. sd. The Civil and Ordinary Expenditure for the March quarter last year was £3,697 6s. 3d.; this year, £3,009 3s. 7d. Roads, Public Works, and other Extraordinary Expenditure, last year, 4,366 10s. lid.; this year, £1,045 19s. id. It is to be observed, however, in making a comparison, that in addition to the Ordinary Revenue in the March quarter, 1849, there was a Parliamentary Grant of £2,000 while the return under that head this year is nil. Four men suspected of the horrible murder of the lad Ellis, on board the General Palmer, had been arrested after a long and close chase by the armed police, in which they received valuable aid from natives. Their names are Good, McAuslan, Jones and Thompson. After repeated investigations before the Resident Magistrate, H. St. Hill, Esq., they were committed to take their trial at the sittings of the Supreme Court, which commence this day (the first of June). The evidence against them, so far as it then came forward, was entirely circumstantial; but the circumstances seemed very strong, especially against Good and McAuslan. While referring to crime we may mention that John Smith, a private of the 65th Regt., who (as we noticed in a former number) |had been convicted of an outrageous assault on a

married woman, and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor, assaulted ludge Chapman, on the Karori road, where the convict was engaged in the labour ordered by the Court. After an examination of this new charge by three magistrates, he was sentenced to receive fifty lashes, which punishment was inflicted at the gaol before the assembled prisoners, It appears that Smith desired to be transported, and committed the offence with the expectation that he might thus secure that object. If anything could reconcile us to public flogging as a'partof our punitive system, such a case as this might ; yet we cannot but wish that even in this case some other mode of punishment had been fixed on. Whatever effect such flogging may have in deterring others from crime, the conviction is now almost universal amongst those at home who have investigated the subject, that — so far as the reformation of the criminal himself is the object of punitive discipline, it signally fails; the vast majority being hardened and rendered reckless, rather than reclaimed by it. The decisions of the Wellington Magistrates at the Annual Meeting for granting Publicans' Licenses had excited comment there, as those in our own town excited it here — but for a contrary reason. Here, the complaint was that Licenses had been taken away from parties previously possessed of them : there, it was, that they had been granted, as it would seem, in a lavish and almost undiscriminating manner. Five additional licenses were granted for Wellington, making the number of the public houses in the town and its immediate neighbourhood, twenty- four. The Magistrates judged it expedient to explain this their liberality to applicants by the adoption of a resoi lutioa stating that " the numerous applications granted on this occasion have been acceded to in the hope of securing to the public the benei fit of competition," and adding an assurance that the houses shall be subjected to vigilant police supervision. It is not easy to I see what good is to be anticipated from compej tition between publicans, that can be weighed l against the almost inevitable evil which the Spectator points out : — " The effect of such a competition will be to cause those who are carrying on a losing game to make desperate efforts to retrieve themselves, and offer greater facilities for the indulgence of imorality and vice." The death of Rangitauria, the head Chief of the Te Putoko tribe, took place at Wanganui on the 16th of April. We take the fol- ; lowing sketch of his history from the Independent :— - He was one of the first to welcome the arrival of Europeans at Wanganui, and altvays proved himself their staunch friend, in using his influence in their favour on the various hostile visits of the Taupo and t other natives, as well as on the disputed land questions. He was formerly a person of very great influence, being connected with Te Kuru and other chic s of the interior. On one occasion when Te Rauparaha came to Wanganui on a war expedition, Rangitauira was the principal agent in compelling him to return to Kapiti. On the arrival of the settlers he left his tribe and settlement at Pipitiki for the purpose of living near the whites. — This and the infirmities of age caused him to lose somewhat of his former influence with the natives i still on many occasions he exerted his eloquence which was powerful, abounding in severe sarcasms, in favour of the settlers, and probably prevented many ill consequences which might have arisen but for his interference. That he was of greit age may be inferred from his remembering Captain Cook being talked of,— though bowed down with infirmities he retained his intellect* to the very last, an d died as he had lived, expres»ing the strongest regard for the Pakeha. The "Wellington Atheneura and Mechanics' Institute" was opened formally on the 11th of April. An interesting account of the proceedings on the occasion, abridged from a long report in the Independent, will be found in another column. We regret to observe, however, that the working of the Institution since has not been characterised by that harmony which is so essential to the full success of such an undertaking. At the half-yearly Meeting, on the 7th of May, a disagreement arose respecting the parties with whom the privilege of appointing a Librarian rested. The Committee claimed it as their right, and as necessary to their carrying on the business of the Institute efficiently ; but, after a discussion, the power , was taken out of their hands, and declared to belong not to them, but to the members generally. Upon this, Mr. Roberts, one of the Committee, and Mr. Woodward, the Treasurer, declined to act any longer. Their places were immediately supplied ; — but discord once introduced in such a society, especially in a small community, it is impossible to foretell how far it may hinder future progress. A curious correspondence between Mr. E. Jerningham Wakefield and Mr. W. Swainson, has been published. In a Review of Wakefield's Art of Colonisation, in the New Zealand Magazine, Mr. Swainson had described Mr. E. J. Wakefield's volumes on New Zealand as containing, " in almost every page the most unscrupulous distortions, exaggerations, and ] even falsehoods;" adding "Had this yourjf man confined himself to describe that class of society with which he chiefly associated, and] with whofo his ' larks' and ' sprees' rendereji him highly popular, it would all have betH well. But he could know nothing of *lfl opinions of that better order of settlers who declined the honor of his acquaintance -." again, " He has certainly given us a very fair specimen of the vulgarity of colonial writing — 'Old j Swainson' he mentions as *,a settler knowing! something of Entomology ,' does he know till

meaning of the word ? And yet this hopeful youth, on his return home became one of the New Zealand Directors!" On Mr. E. J. Wavefield's arrival at Otago by the Lady Nugent, this article came into his hands, and he wrote to Mr. Swainson calling upon him either to retract the charge of falsehood or to put it into such a shape as would enable him to disprove it : — intimating that Mr. Swainson himself is interested in withdrawing the assert/on that the better class of settlers would not associate with him, inasmuch as his own daughter was in the habit of associating with him for long periods at a time, as the guest of • the late Col. Wakefield and of his daughter, Mrs. Stafford: — denying that he spoke or wrote disrespectfully of Mr. Swainson, whom he described in his work as " Mr. Swainson, the eminentjEntomologist:" — and declaring that he never was a New Zealand Director, and never had the slightest pecuniary interest in the New Zealand Company. . . .Mr. Swainson, in reply, says that if he had been influenced by bad feelings he migh have strengthened his case by mentioning the fact, publicly stated in the Spectator, that Mr. E. J. Wakefield was " dismissed from the Bench of Magistrates, by Captain Fitzßoy for immoral conduct," and might have adverted to his "personal knowledge of the unhappy abduction of Miss Turner" by his father, Mr.E. Gibbon Wakefieli>, "and the ultimate ruin and death of Miss Dalby, who was a personal friend of our" (Mr. Swainson's) " family." u I admit, however," he says, " that my strictures on your work are severe, and that, not having it to refer to, I have made a slight mis-statemeut. These I shall rectify in ' Notes to the Review, ' in the forthcoming number. I shall also explain more precisely my meaning on other general assertions in the edition which will be printed in England.". . . .This is the substance of this correspondence of crimination and recrimination, which (although as chroniclers of passing events, we give this condensed account of it) we could wish had been confined to the writer's themselves. However, Mr. E. J. Wakefield has himself procured its insertion in the Independent, and expresses a desire that it should be made public, as he thinks it will " sufficiently enable the public to judge of the authority due to Mr. Swainson's assertions." There is other matter in the Southern papers which — although scarcely entitled to be called news — will merit consideration. We have, however, gone as far as the claims on our space to day will permit, especially as we give " Wellington Extracts" at some length in our other columns.

Resident Magistrate's Court. — On Monday last Francis O'Neal, a private in the 58th Regiment, was charged with having committed a brutal assault on a respectable married female, Mrs. Eliza Dunning, in the neighbourhood of the Presbyterian Church, between 9 and 10 o'clock on the evening of Sunday week. After hearing the evidence, Mr. Beckham postponed his decision until next day, not because he had any doubt of the prisoner's guilt, but to consider whether he should deal with the case summarily, or send it to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday the prisoner was again brought up, and the Resident Magistrate, after forcibly commenting on the brutal and cowardly act which he had committed, sentenced him (o pay a fine of £5 and costs, or to be imprisoned for two months with hard laJjour. This sentence, although it falls far short of what justice might demand as the punishment of so flagrant an outrage, was, we believe, the utmost that the Court had the power to inflict. And, taking all the circumstances of this case into account, we think that the Resident Magistrate exercised a wise discretion, as well as showed the uprightness and " good conscience" by which (as all parties admit) his decisions are habitually governed, in securing that this criminal should receive a certain amount of punishment, without leaving it to the contingencies of a trial, in which legal ingenuity might embarrass justice. O'Neal is not likely to be able to pay the pecuniary penalty, and the alternative punishment of two months in Gaol with hard labour may be a salutary lesson to himself, and we trust may prove a warning to any of his comrades who may be tempted to act in the infamous way he has done.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.