THE DEATH OF CAREY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1178, 24 November 1883, Page 3

THE DEATH OF CAREY.

GRAPHIC PICTURE OF THE SCENE. The Central News has been allowed to transcribe from documents now in the possession of O'Donnell's friends the whole story of the tragedy on board the s.s. Melrose, as narrated by the prisoner in the course of a lengthened interview. O'Dounell is described by the interviewer as an exceedingly simple and straightforward man, of great intelligence for one unable to read or write. The rough and hazardous scenes of his life in America have stamped on his character resolution and decerminalion, but the Donegal peasant is still noticeable in many rather prepossessing traits. To bo hanged for shooting Carey has in itself, apparently, little terror for him ; but he is intensely excited at the idea of having it supposed he was a person detailed or set, or sent, or moved to do anything of the kind de liberately. At every opportunity he inveighs bitterly against the version of the shooting as a premeditated and unprovoked affair, put forward by the Crown. He positively asserts that young Carey has invented in afterthought the most important, part of his evidence. "That boy is as cunning as a cayote," he declares. On the voyage out to the Cape he formed quite an attachment for other of the Power children, but this youth was "too old and too deep" for his years. The prisoner talked freely of his movements for years past, and described his visit this year to his native county, Donegal. He never wn3 in Dublin at all. From Londonderry, he says, he went by way of Belfast to Scotland, and thence straight on to London, where he booked in his own name for the Cape. Ho declared with constant emphasis that until after they touched at Capetown he knew no more about Carey or thought about him "no more than the man that never was born." " Did you not hear him discussed when you were in Ireland V "Oh, a hundred i:.mes; and I said about what everyone was saying. I heard so much about him that I knew the Phoenix Park .affair was only a small portion of the murders he did or had a hand in, and I used to say ' hanging was too good for him.'" " It was no idea about him carried, yor to South Africa ?" " That can be proved; for I had told my friends soon after I came to Ireland this year I would give up America and go to the Cape or Australia. I would not go in one ship with Carey for a hundred thousand dollars sure, if I knew of it. I would expect the ship to sink." " Had you no suspicions on the voy age out?" { ' No. The thought of his being Carey never once occurred to me ; but once or twice, I'll own, I noticed things that would make me think he was a detective or else a man on the run for something." "For a crime ?' "Yes; but then I used to say to myself again,'twas dreaming I was against the man." " You got to be friends with him." "Very soon. There were not very many on board, and he and I soon found we were both Irish ; I believe there were only four or five on board that were Irish; and except a few times he'd got moody and black like, or when he was in a dispute with anyone, he was agreeable, and would make up with anyone. In fact he would force his company on you. He forced himself on me, and I. got somehow to feel for them ; they seemed poor, and 1 liked the children." "Did you not taik on politics ?" "We did, or rather he did. lam not a politician, and don't mix much in them things, even when maybe I ought. If you write home you can find that the day of the Land League meeting, or some meeting while I was at home, I didn't go to it, but took my brother's gun and went, put fowling on the mountain. I think the police could tell that, for, being an Irish American, they seemed to be watching me, having the gun." "Then Carey sometimes talked politics V " Yes, and when he did he began cursing and darning the English. In fact he used get into rows over it." "Didn't you ever talk of the Carey affair in Dublin ?" '• There was twice we mentioned about the Phoenix Park business ; but somehow we got away from it. To tell you the truth, he would give vou to think he was on the run for some of those :nurders in Ireland, and I should say he was a man who would take a life as soon as he would shoot a rat."

" Well, you heard the evidence given by some of the witnesses, that while you were quietly sitting down you shot Carey in their presence, and said you were sent to do it r

(Prisoner,- very angrily)—-"But you don't mean to tell me anyone believes that 1 My God ! mustn't they all know that if I was sent to do harm to him, or wanted to harm or hurt to him, I had a hundred good chances on the voyage out, arid any of them could tell you that. Many a dark and stormy night we used to sit alone,: smoking and chatting, in nooks and corners of the deck, till eleven o'clock at night. Ask any of the ship's people about that. It was a terrible rough passage out to the Cape, and if nnyohe who was after Carey was on board, God help us, he could have been shot and pitched overboard many of these nights without anyone seeing it. Sure the wi<nesses swore that before the magistrate." "Mr Greenhough certainly did ; but the Crown say you were on board to do it."

" Do they say I'd wait to do it publicly in a cabin, where Carey could lay hold on me, and everybody catch me ? Why, I'll tell you what—tho very night we sailed from Capetown it was a bad night, stormy and dark and bad, and Carey flopped late with us in the second-class cabin, as they call it. When he started to go off to the steerage for the night, he said he was afraid to go alone because he thought he m:ght be washol overboard, and he asked me to go along with him, which 1 did. You just inquire and you'll find that that is God's truth. I tell you I knew no more than the child unborn about him being Carey till the rumor was about the Melrose, after we were a&hore at Capetown." "But you knew it then 1"

"Yes, I knew it then, and then I'd rather have been under the sea cr away somehow out of the ship ; but I would not be sure till I proved it. "But why did you book on to Natal when you had booked only to Capetown V "I had all through an ideal might

make up my mind in do that; and long before we got to 0 ipetown Carey persuaded me to come on with him there, as we had got to be chunr-s. [ think the Kinfatinv people knew this long befoie we got to the Ope." " You went ashore with hi n at Capetown ?" " Oh, yes, and my wife and some of his children ; and, in a way, I was sorry because he was so quarrelsome, and I thought lie would shoot a man that he was rowing with there.. I'm sure if anyone wanted to shoot Carey he could have done it easily that night on shore, for 'twas pitch dark and no lamps, and I had trouble enough helping him along, for he had something taken." " Was he armed 1" " Oh, yes. I kuow he did not go ashore either at Madiera or Capetown, without a pistol or two, and I saw a revolver with him at other times as well." " Did not that arouse your suspicion ?" "Not mucli. I carried my own ievolver often in the same way, and, in fact it remained in my pocket after being at Capetown. Where I come from one is used to do so." "What happened when you did find out who he was ?" In reply to questions on this point the prisoner answered apparently with the utmost readiness and candour. In his own way he described his utter disgust and horror at the thought that he had been "chumming" .with the "greatest monster on earth," alternating wth doubt that a man so strong about religion and so fierce in cursing the English could really be the man. O'Donnell said he scarcely slept that night, thinking and planning " how to pull out of him," After being so intimate, without a row ; for he had already seen that Power, or Carey, was a violent and dangerous sort of man. " Every two minutes " that Sunday morning he changed between thinking Power was and was not. Carey, He rarely, and for a long time never, touched drink, but he took some with Carey that afternoon. He says he tried to avoid Carey that Sunday, but he followed bim about and clung on to him. He made some excuse to shake him off on deck, and was going below when Carey told him to order some ale for him. and call him down when 'twas ready. Carey came down soon after, not in a very good, humor, and asked for his ale and sat down to drink it. As they sat at the taWe Carey, decidedly excited with liquor, or e'se some way nervous, noticed O'Donnell's manner to be strange, and seemed suddenly to suspect something. " What did you do with your pistol 1 Have you got it?" said Carey. "I sold it rb the Cape," replied O'Donnell evasively. "Why do you ask?" "Because I can tell you it might hare got you into trouble ; you alarmed people when vou fired at the flying-fish." " It alarmed no one who had riot cause to have fear in his heart," replied O'Donnell. Carey started as if stung, and went off, returning in a while. After standing a moment moodily, he suddenly taxed 0' Doinell in a challenging tone with his changed manner. O'Donnell most earnestly asseverates that at that instant (as far as was ever he was afraid of any man, " which was not much") he realised he was in the hands of a and a murderer, who would fasten a quarrel on him if he found out he was discovered. Carey, on the other hand, according to O'DonnelPs description, fulfilled the sentiment that " the thief doth fear each bush an officer "; and appeared as if he expected that any Irishman that found him out was surely sent to kill bim. Scaicely had O'Donnell uttored some bitter observation as to the rumor about " Carey " (which if the man were Power could not offend him), than, "in the clapping of your hands," or, he says, "while you'd be marking M," the two men were in grips, with pistol in hand. O'Donnell, with impressive earnestness, says that the whole thing was so instantaneous that he hardly did anything but half mechanically till all was over. "Both of us, no doubt," he says, "were somehow in a state to go off at halfcock." (To le Continued.)