Auckland Echoes.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4249, 14 August 1882, Page 2

Auckland Echoes.

(from our semi-occasional correspon-

dent.)

The last awful act of the drama of the Epsocq murder has been played, Winiata's curtain of life has been rung down, and the public with their morbidity sated are turning their attention to iSjtber matters. It would ill become me tfo serve your readers with a rehash of the details of the execution, but I cannot allow the matter to pass into oblivion without adding my testimony to the mass of evidence collected by the Auckland Star to show that Winiata's death was practically instantaneous. I had an opportunity of inspecting the corpse within half an hour of the execution. On feeling the head, I discovered it was quite loose, and could be moved from side.to side with the little .finger; moreover, the neck was stretched fully half its normal length. The expression on the conviot's face was one of almost perfect repose, the mouth being slightly open and the eyes nearly closed. There was not the slightest trace of pain, and surely there would have been some contraction of the facial muscles had the man been half strangled, as described by the Herald, for five minutes. Con« trary to my prediction, the murderer died without making a confession. My theory .to account for his obduracy is this:— During the terrible time between the conviction and the execution, Winiata was attended by a good old Wesleyan parson, named Wallis, and the wily native succeeded in inducing that gentleman to believe in his innocence, and he could not find it in.his heart to undeceive a man who believed so sincerely that he was guiltless of the charge preferred against him. To my mind one of the strongest external evidences of Winiata's guilt is the fact that none of his relatives or associates have sought, in the slightest degree, to assert his innocent, showing that he was regarded by them as the murderer of Packer. The letter written to his brother the evening before the execution, is, according to the best Maori scholars, a direct confession of guilt. {It is not very explicit, _ but stripped ot^Om flowery verbiage it is a clear admission."!

Apropos of the execution, I will tell you a good story. Captain Jackson Barry obtained from the Sheriff permission to make a cast of the head of Winiata, the only condition being that it shoulcLJb? — -~ kept a secret. Barry relatechiifs "good fortune to quite a number of people (as a great secret), the consequence being that it speedily became known about Queen Street. A journalistic friend of mine got hold of it, and telegraphed it to some Southern papers as an item of news, the result being that the Sheriff soon received a sharp telegram from the authorities at Wellington, and poor Barry found that the glibness of his tongue had lost him what would, no doubfc, have been a source of considerable profit. A little bird has whispered to me that, after all. some one got a cast of the convict's features, but I must keep my secret more inviolably, than the Captain did his.

There has been a good deal of talk recently about the necessity of closing the present cemeteries ia Symonds street. They have been in use nearly forty years, are crowded, and the increase of population on erory side renders oiir depositories far the dead a menace to the health of the living. There is a splendid cenietery reserve on the northern railway, andfthe members of the cemetery committee purpose taking steps to popularise it as a place of sepulture.

And now for a word or two on the present political crisis, as viewed through Auckland spectacles. There is apparently a consensus of opinion here in favor of supporting the Whitaker Ministry as against a Ministry the mainsprings of which would be Ofcago and Canterbury. We Aucklanders feel that the favored provinces of the South have already gormandised far more than thein^bare of share of the borrowed millions, and we are determined if possible to prevent them obtaining another, cent until justice has been done to the North. Were the Northern Provincial districts, including Nelson and Westland, to combine Otago and Canterbury might be excluded from participation in the forthcoming loan. It would be a simple act of justice. The only point on which people north of; Cook Strait differ-is .the route of the trufiiic^litfe *of railway, and I am convinced that Wellington's jealousy of Auckland on this point will prevent anything like perfect harmony being established between the two northern centres.

The Chairman of the East Cbristchurch School Committee proposes to compel all children to attend a school sefc apart for the purpose, whence the better behaved children should be drafted off to other schools in each district. By this means he thinks the contamination of decent children in the ordinary schools by the larrikin element would be avoided, and all that objectionable class could be dealt with. The school committee concurs with the Chairman, and will press the subject on the Education Board.. „ , '