THE CASE OF MACDONALD.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4207, 14 September 1874, Page 3

THE CASE OF MACDONALD.

(From the Uawhe's Bay Times, September 11.) When Alexander McDonald, the adopted member of one of tbc Manawatu hapus, under the impulse of passion and liquor, rashly took the law into his own hands and shot one of Mr. Young’s coach horses, comparatively little pity was felt for him when he met a just retribution for such wicked and wanton conduct. Even the bulk of the Natives at the Ouroa had sufficient good, sense to know that he who was many years their guide and counsellor, seriously compromised the reputation of the tribe ; and whatever sympathy was expressed at the time was more on account of the wife and family deprived of their head than for the offender himself. Even many of McDonald’s personal friends and relatives were forced to admit that the visitation of the law was after all very lenient as compared with the aggravated nature of the offence. Our attention has been directed to this matter by an appeal in a contemporary on McDonald’s behalf. It is argued that as he is a person of a highly sensitive nature, he will have felt the imprisonment he has already undergone more acutely than a coarser nature would have felt the full sentence. We confess we can more admire the generous impulses of the writer than his logic. Knowing something of McDonald’s previous pranks, we should say that his “sensibility” is overborne by an ungovernable temper which at times keeps sense and sensensibility alike in tbe background. It is well known that his ill-advised conduct during a series of years, and which culminated in the shooting of Young’s coach horse, kept the Natives of the district in which he resided in continual hot water, and seriously impeded the progress and prosperity he should have been most instrumental in promoting. Now, however, that Macdonald has been afforded an opportunity for his “acute sensibility” to come into play, there is very little doubt that he heartily repents of his rashness, and if his sentence were commuted to-morrow would come out a sadder and wiser man, and by the exercise of that personal influence which he is known to possess amongst the Natives, make some atonement for his past misconduct. Taking this view of the case, we imagine that an extension of clemency on the part of the Government would not be unacceptable to the public at large. It is well known that such a punishment as Macdonald is undergoing will greatly lessen his prestige in the eyes of the Natives, and to that extent induce him to follow in the future a more discreet and temperate course of action.