THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2107, 5 October 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1875.

The report of the Select Committee oa the Ohinemuri Miners' Right question was presented to the House of Representatives last niiilit, and to-day it will be found in our columns,. Having been wired to us by our special correspondent at Wellington. There is little in it that is -new, the main facts having already appeared, despite the secrecy that is supposed to hedge around the proceedings of select committees. It is satisfactory to learn that not a vestige of suspicion attaches to the JVarden's Department in connection with the issue of the miners' rights before the proper time. Every one will rejoice to learn that the officials have been fully exonerated by the disclosures made to the Committee, and the offence now attaches to Mr Edward Torrens Brissenden and Mr Gerald O'Halloran. The head aad front of the offending seems to Lave been the former, and the Committee have found that he was guilty of fraudulently receiving the rights fromMr O'Halloran. What further proceedings the Governmentor the House may direct to be taken we cannot s»y, but if a fraud has been perpetrated a criminal prosecution will surely follow 5

and as that may be the next phase of this unpleasant business wo shall offer no further comment on the matter at present.

We are rather surprised to learn thp system of duplex telegraphy, or sending* two messages in different directions through one wire has been in operation for some time on the Cook's Straits cable, and on one of the wires between Blenheim and Christchurch, and that it has proved a great convenience, easing the pressure of work very considerably upon the Christchurch line. This duplex system is the one, we believe, which gained for Mr Lemon such kudos in the scientific world of New Zealand, and the question suggests itself why the system is not more generally applied if it is capable of such great things. Judging from the delay which frequently occurs on the line between Wellington and Auckland, owing to. the press of business, it would seem advisable to introduce the " duplex system" more generally, and thus relievo the pressui'e upon the wires. If the system is valuable in one place, its applicability should be general, the convenience being, we should imagine, equally advantageous to the telegraph department and the public. The press especially would appreciate this utilization of the duplex system, as it would save them from the vexatious delays which at present are too frequent in their dealings with the telegraph department.

A contejipobaby understands that " Dr Hector, the.talented and indefatigable head of the geological department of this colony, has been received with great cordiality by the savans of the the United Kingdom, and not by them alone, but also in Germany his labors in the interest of science have been appreciated and rewarded. Dr Hector has been made an honorary member of the Athenseum club, one of the rarest compliments paid to any stranger, and he has been dining and talking with" most of the scientific and philosophical clubs and societies in London. In June last he was sent for to the German Embassy, and there he had the Cross of the Grand Crown given to him in- the name of the Emperor by the Minister." The paper from which we have quoted further understands that Dr Hector is to be appointed to represent New Zealand at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. This may be all right and in accordance with the learned doctor's deserts,- but it is scarcely compatibJo with the expressions of opinion regarding Dr Hector's attainments recently given in Dunedin, when Professor Hutton and other local: scientists proclaimed the absent Hector to be little more than a charlatan.- ■ * / "

Whatever may have been Cyrus Haley's faults or crimes-, or however much, the mo-t rigid exacter of justice may find cause for self-gratulation at the life-long punishment to which he was condemned, there can be, we should think, but one feeling of sorrow, if not shanie, in the minds of all who read the telegrams which j announced his sudden and unauthorised j death. We are quite willing to allow that the crimes he had committed were so great and heinous as to deserve the | utmost penalty, short of death, which the j law could inflict; we are willing, as far as what we have, now to say is concerned, to | ignore those injuries—real or imaginary— which urged on JH aley to commit the j desperate acts for which he suffered, and which might be urged by some — less Pharisaical than we will for the nonce as- j sutne. ourselves to be—in extenuation of his crimes; but even allowing Haley j to be as bad as his "■-dearest foe" could wish to hare him appear, we say most! emphatically that the manner in which his destruction was brought .about was a disgrace to any civilized community. Granted .that-the law will bear Warder Millar guiltless as regards his fatal shot, that very law which allows a man to execute a fellow creature uncpndemmed is itself* a disgrace to any community which allows such a law to exist. Putting aside the many and obvious ways in which it is open to abuse at the hands of irascible or ignorant warders, the mere fact of the danger in which it may place the lives and property of the innocent and harmless public should of itself furnish sufficient cause why this barbarous relic of a bygone age—we mean allowing warders to discharge, their weapons just when and where they please after their runaway prisoners ■—should no longer be suffered to remain amongst the laws of this Colony. Fancy a man or woman being shot dead in the open street because a warder is short-winded, or does not care to take the trouble to pursue his prisoner any further! Would not the whole community be up in arms at such an act if it were committed ? And yet it is neither impossible, or even by any means improbable, that it may be committed, if warders are to be allowed to fire their rifles as they like at i some flying captive who has escaped their clutches. All wai'ders may not be endowed with that fatal gift of making sure of a man's back and lungs even at that comparatively short distance of a score and a-half yards, at which range, we are told,' Warder Miller brought down his man, and may painfully verify the adage concerning shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow. Besides, we will assume that, notwithstanding the refractory behavour of their prisoners—and that some of these are very refractory, the behaviour of Haley himself seems to. show—they are not entirely destitute of the milk of human kindness, and would use every endeavour to come up with the runaway on foot ere takiDg the fatal pull. Both these causes, viz., their lack of skill, and the puffed and exhausted condition iv which their run has left them,

tend to render their aim uncertain, and as rifle bullets are not limited in their rangeto "90 or 100 feet" it is unpleasantly possible that some other than the next runaway dowQ Stuart "street, Dunedin, may receive the contents of the next rifle which some blown or awkward warder may see fit to discharge. It is all very well to talk of this case as an isolated instance, and to argue that though it has. occurred once it is not jikely to occur again. The fact remains that as long as .a. promiscuous use of firearms is allowed to warders who, as in this case, show themselves unfit for the trust, these enses may possibly happen, and therefore the possibility of their happening should be taken away* by taking away the license hitherto granted. We do not for one moment incan to say that warders should be left unarmed to take care of desperate and perhaps unscrupulous prisoners. Such a suggestion would be more unjust to the warders than the present license is to the public. But simply that on no account should a warder be allowed to fire at his man in any place where hemay destroy human life, eventhoughthe escape of the prisoner be the consequence. It will be seen that we hare hitherto argued this question merely on the ground that the safety of the public is at stake. Accidents by flood and field are not sufficiently rare in their occurrence as to make it desirable, that they should be increased by stray bullets from warders' rifles, and the greatest lover of sensation would feel more than satisfied by {he crash of smashed goods in his shop window, or the broken limbs, if not death, of some relative as the result of some unskilful or perspiring amateur rifleman. But there is another aspect in which it may be regarded, viz., that of inflicting sudden death on a human being not condemned to death by the laws of his country, and perhaps more in need of time ere death come upon him than many of those around him. This aspect, however, is scarcely fitting matter to appear in the columns of a newspaper, and therefore with it we forebear to deal. It- of course will be said that unless some powerful deterrent exist to prevent convicts running away, imprisonment for life could only exist in name, and we should have the country overrun with refugees from justice. No doubt stringent measures are needed, both to prevent the escape of prisoners and to deter others from attempting it, but there are many ways of preventing the one and effecting the other without giving power to warders to shoot any flyaway they choose, a state of things which a country being under martial law, would alone, in our opinion, be able to justify, and an instance of which we deplore in the untimely death of Cyrus Haley. *