New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5043, 23 May 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1877.

In a supplement to the present issue of the New Zealand Times will be found a very complete account of all the circumstances connected with the wreck of the Ocean Mail. It will be seen that the loss of the vessel has been attributed, by the Court of Enquiry held at the Chathams, to carelessness or worse on the part of the officers, and that some of the officers and crew are now lodged in the Wellington Gaol on a charge of perjury arising out of the evidence they gave at the enquiry. The captain’s certificate, it will be seen, has been suspended for nine months. We may at once say that this punishment seems to us quite inadequate. It is true no lives have been lost ; but according to the finding of the Court, that is not the captain’s fault. The elements fortunately combined to prevent what it seems pretty certain the captain did not avoid, namely, the loss of his passengers and crew, as well as that of his ship and cargo. Some three years and ahalf since an immigrant vessel, the Surat, was wrecked on the southcoast of the Middle Island. After she struck on a rock the captain sought consolation in drink ; but the passengers and crew were saved, and the ship was beached near Gatlin’s River, and subsequently sold with her cargo for over £9OOO. The captain was afterwards deprived of his certificate, and got in addition three months’ imprisonment, with hard labor—a sentence evidently given on the French principle pour I’encourager les metres. Captain Watson, by fault previously, has wrecked his ship, and gets off with a nine months’ suspension of his certificate. It is evident that justice as administered at Dunedin and at the Chatham Islands are two very different things.