The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1884. A TERRIBLE STATE OF THINGS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1123, 8 January 1884, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1884. A TERRIBLE STATE OF THINGS.

The evidence elicited at the inquest on the body of the woman Hancock, in Dunedin, discloses a shocking state of morality in that city. The woman, from what we can gather, was stabbed to death by her paramour. Several of the neighbors came in to see her while she was dying. One of them—a woman —brought in beer, and the whole crowd of them began drinking it, and while doing so they suggested to hush up the affair and hide the knife with which the murderous brute had stabbed ber. Another woman, who had witnessed the whole affair, told the police that the wound had been caused by the deceased having fallen on a piece of glass—for no other purpose than to screen the wretch who had committed the foul deed. Of all present no one thought of giving information, but one and all offered suggestions as to how the matter could be bushed up. This betrays a state of depravity which is scarcely credible, and gives one the idea that the southern city is scarcely a safe place to live in. We did not think that there was in New Zealand a community in which a person could have been stabbed to death to the knowledge of a large number of persons without someone being found amongst them with as much respect for the law as would suggest to him'the propriety of calling in the aid of the police. -But the Dunedin witnesses of this heinous crime only said that as the woman was dead, it would be a pity if her murderer should get into trouble over! lit, They seemed to look on the matter as a mere nothing. It would seem as if they were well used to such occurrences, and perhaps they were ; lor it could hardly be believed that any people whb had not similar experiences previously could be so callously indifferent to so horrorstriking an incident as the committal of a cold-blooded murder in their very midst. This is Dunedin, the seat of Freethought and Atheism, and here are some of its fruits. It is a pitiable state of affairs.