The Westport Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 587, 30 November 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1869.

Sympathy or even the semblance of sympathy with crime is, in point of evil, next to crime itself ; and, though it cannot always be checked by the law, it at least deserves condign condemnation, so far as that can be attained by the open expression of public feeling. \V"e regret to think that, in some recent instances, there has been exhibited in this part of the Gohlfields a sort of maudlin sympathy with the worst form of outrage —outrage against the person. We regret more to notice that, in quarters where a very different line of conduct should be cultivated, there has been an indirect encouragement of this most unhealthy feeling —there has been the treating of the perpetration of a crime with a more ridiculous than sublime air of indifference, and there has been the elevating into the position of heroes men who, either by their fault or their misfortune, have become associated with an outrage against life and the peace of a community. It is high time that, in the interests of the public generally, and in defence of what may yet remain of healthy human feeling on such a subject, there should be a protest entered against these direct or indirect exhibitions of sympathy, as at once insulting to the law and as compromising the law-abiding disposition of those who, let us hope, do yet constitute the vast majority.

The most recent instance of this oiling over of outrages, and of this sadly degenerate form of hero-worship, has occurred ia connection with the disgraceful, disgusting, and unfortunately fatal affray which occurred a few days ago in the streets of Charleston. Of the character of thxt outrage against the peace and good name of the community of Charleston it is unnecessary to become elaborately descriptive. The evidence at the inquest has, no doubt, been read ; and, without saying a word as to the men who have rightly or wrongly been arrested as concerned in the affray, or without wishing any wish but that they may be fully proved to be innocent, we may safely say that the reading of that evidence must have carried its own ontrmiPTit with it". TSTo on pi with proper feelings who was acquainted with the circumstances before they became public through the inquest, or who ascertained them through the means of that inquiry, could fail to think or speak of them —even in the abstract, and apart altogether from considerations of those who may now be implicated—otherwise than with very strong feelings and in very strong words. "With some, we regret to say —and we equally regret to say that their feelings must be anything but proper feelings—the matter seems to have been appreciated differently and more lightly. In the Charleston paper, for instance, on the day after the occurrence, when feeling was likely to be most intense, all that we read of the sad and serious affair was contained iu a small paragraph at the end of a more or less amusing description of the scenes connected with the recent Provincial Council election. Thus strangely associated, and thus gently and gingerly, was the matter told to the public :

During the evening and far into the niglit a considerable number of persons devoted themselves to pleasure. The Bal Masque at the Casino do Venice and Mrs Mirfin's Ball at the Shamrock Ilotel were well patronised. At an early hour, however, on Tuesday morning an event transpired which cast considerable gloom over the community. It seems that a number of men more or less under the influence of drink bandied words on the street. A fight ensued and one unfortunate man was killed.

Just one " unfortunate man " —only one who was really killed ! And it came all as a matter-of-course —tbere were devotees of pleasure, and wellpatronised balls, but words were bandied in the street, a fight ensued, and " it. seems " he was killed ; and there is an end of it. Reading this as the account of an occurrence in Texas or Mexico, no one might be expected to receive it otherwise than as a matter-of-course account of a matter-of-course occurrence ; but we hope it is by no means yet a matter-of-course even on the West Coast of New Zealand that human life is to be made the shuttle-cock in a street game of battledore, or that the narrative of what might or might not be—may or may not have been—a murder, shall be told so " trippingly on the tongue." Of course the feelings of those who might be implicated, and the feelings of their friends, must bo consulted ; but had Patrick Kirk no friends—was there nothing in his death to be avenged by the power of the Law—that his fate should thus indelicately be disposed of as the fate of one " whom nobody owned ?" It looks remarkably like it ; but we shall not believe it, nor shall we believe that, with this laissez-faire style of treating such a subject, did the sense of the Charleston people sympathise. We siucerely trust we may say the same with regard to the scene presented at the departure of tho three men who are, rightly or wrongly, charged with complicity in the criuie

of his death, and with regard to the manner in which that scene is presented to the distant public. It is thus that we are told of that scene ; and our readers, we think, will readily recognise in the narrative the same spirit of trifling with the grave character of the crime and with the serious position in which the prisoners were placed:— i The departure of the prisoners O'Brien, M'Laughlan,- and Sullivan yesterday morning for Nelson caused considerable excitement. About two hundred people assembled in the neighbourhood of the Melbourne Hotel, and for a few minutes the prisoners had a busy time of it listening to expressions of good-will and shaking hands with sympathizing friends. Two coaches with, splendid teams of four horses each were put on—one to carry the prisoners, and the other to convey the witnesses.

Of course, in the " two coaches with splendid teams of four horses each" we can trace only the horrible hand of " Jeaines." To him " splendid teams " are instinctively associated with the name of Cobb and Co., whether the said " splendid teams " are hired to draw a marriage party's barouche, a hearse, or a prison van ; and Cobb and Co. must have the inevitable "puff." The people oi Charleston are not to be made responsible for the -incorporation of that feature with the history of this apparent public ovation to prisoners of the Law. It is to be hoped that neither are they to be made responsible for this apparent public ovation itself. Naturally, and as a matter of course, men, whether they are prisoners or not, will have friends ; and these prisoners may most deservedly have " sympathising friends," and may, equally deservedly, have received " expressions of good - will." It has not yet been proved —it may never be proved—that in that prison van, that " coach with the splendid team of four horses," they were " the right men in the right place." And it is that very ingredient in the case which should have deterred anyone but the most intimate of " sympathising friends " from taking part in any public demonstration. Gruiltless as all these prisoners may be, that is just the question which the Law and their Country have to try ; it is a duty which the Law discharges calmly and without animus ; it would become the prisoners and their friends to undertake the defence in a similar spirit. A defence fund, confined to their friends, though it has been objected to, is a perfectly legitimate undertaking ; this parading of sympathy prior to a trial, in the presence of witnesses bound to attend that trial, and this parading in print of coaches and " splendid teams" in such connoctionn, aro oqually reprehensible. It would be more reprehensible if it could be believed that the majority of the " two hundred " were anything more than mere spectators. It would Lave been as seemly if some of the two hundred had stood by the side of the grave of Patrick Kirk.