News of the Day.

SUPPOSED MURDER OF FOUR MEN ON THE MAUNGATAPU. Notwithstanding the active search that has been prosecuted for an entire week, the bodies of Matthieu, Kempthorne, Dudley, and Pontius, who left Deep Creek, Wakamarina, for Nelson, this day fortnight, and were seen ascending the Maungatupu on the following day, have not yet been found. There can be no doubt that the men were stuck-up on the road within ten minutes of the time when they are reported to have been last seen, hurried off to a convenient spot, and murdered, and that we have the four murderers now in custody. The feeling of disappointment that no trace of the bodies of the missing men can be found, is most intense. Since our publication on Saturday, there has been nothing fresh of importance discovered, though an important piece of evidence was elicited by the Search Committee on Saturday evening. It had been confidently stated that the men in custody only reached Nelson on Thursday, the day after the murder must have taken place ; but evidence was elicited by the committee, which clearly proved that the men came into town on Wednesday evening, at about ten o'clock. This fact is highly important, as it reduces most considerably the time the murderers had to dispose of the bodies, and correspondingly lessens the area of ground necessary to be searched. We did not, we believe, mention in our previous notices of this mysterious business, that the remains of a camp had been found a little way back on the upper side of the road, about half a mile on the Nelson side of Franklyn's Flat, and that there, behind a rock, was discovered a tin pannikin containing come moistened gunpowder, as if it had been prepared to blacken men's faces. Near to this spot stands a tree which had been struck by a bullet. It was very close to this Bpot that the missing men were last seen by the man and woman who were travelling in the opposite direction, and it is believed that there they must have been first assaulted. But the perplexing question is, How were the four men and horse disposed of when Mr. Bown rode past the spot within half an hour afterwards ? We know that the horse was found shot, a mile further on the road, cleverly got some way down the bank on the lower side of the track and covered with branches of trees and other herbage ; but it was impossible that the horse could have been thus disposed of when Bown rode by ; or still later by perhaps another half-hour, when the man who owned the horse, and was following the party to Nelson to bring the animal back to Wakamarina, reached the spot, as nothing was 6een to awaken suspicion. It seems almost demonstrable that the missing men were surprised at that part of the road near where the camp mentioned haß been found ; that they were hustled into the wood, together with tho horse ; that they were made away with very quickly at some place not far distant ; that the horse, at some subsequent tune in the afternoon, either got away or was led from where it was first taken, and regained the track, along which it travelled for about another mile to the spot where it was probably backed to the edge of the bank, and shot. We cannot give the measured distances, but we can give the time which it took a gentleman, on Sunday, to ride up the road from Franklyn's Flat to where the horse was found, at a pace such as men would travel on foot with a pack-horse. It was thus : — From Franklyn's Flat to the camp where the attack is supposed to have been made, fifteen minutes ; from the latter spot to where the horse was found, twenty minutes. As the suspected murderers were in Nelson by ten o'clock the same evening, and as they must have left the scene of their guilt not later than five o'clock, about three hours and a-half, or four hours at the utmost, is all the time they could have had to perpetrate the murder, and dispose of the bodicß. This dispels the possibility we hinted at on Saturday, that the missing men might have been forced to march back, late in the day, towards the Pelorus, there murdered, and their bodies conveniently disposed of in a pool of that river. Another surmise has been started : That later in the afternoon the victims were marched towards Nelson, and murdered nearer this way. This does not seem to us feasible. The fact of five persons (three singly and two in company) passing along the road besides the murdered men within the space of an hour, must have shown Ihe murderers the danger of keeping on the road during the mid-hours of the day, and it would have occupied too much time and caused too much trouble,*to have sought to gain the old road to Nelson, now disused. Although the search for the bodies has hitherto been unsuccessful, looking at all the circumstances, it does seem as if they cannot be far removed from where the men are supposed to have been stuck up. Nearly 100 persons left Nelson, on Sunday, for the scei.e of the search, some of whom went for the purpose of giving their assistance, while the majority were attracted there by curiosity. We learn that there are now about 120 men on the spot engaged in searching for the bodies of the supposed murdered men, and fifty of these are under the direction of Mr. C. Saxton, while the remainder act in independent bodies. The search is being made so closely and systematically, that it seems next to impossible that it can foil, if steadily pursued, as, rough as the ground is, every yard passed over is examined. Hiß Honour the Superintendent, who had been absent from town, returned on Friday evening last, and has expressed his willingness, on the part of the Government, to find any additional funds that may be needed, beyond the sum subscribed, to defray the cost of maintaining the search-party. From the manner in which the men have worked who volunteered their services, no additional stimulus to exertion has appeared necessary, yet it would be well, we think, for the Government to offer a reward for the discovery of the bodies. Among the men who are now engaged in the search, are many well-known excellent bushmen, and we do not think ill-success will much longer attend the efforts that are being made to clear up one of the most horrible murders we ever heard of, all the circumstances of which at present are involved in the most complete mystery. The Otago Daily Times, of the 16th instant, furnishes us with the following particulars concerning three of the men now in the Nelson Lock-up, who are also the supposed murderers of Mr. Dobson at the Grey, by which it will be seen that they are no ordinary ruffians : — " The ' persons named ' are three daring scoundrels well known in Otago, being no others than Richard Burgess alias Hill, Thomas Kelly alias Hannon, and John Joseph Sullivan, who, in the early days of Gabriel's Gully, stuck-up some men near Wetherstones, and afterwards fired upon the police. * * " The three men were captured here, by Sergeant Bracken (now of Hokitika), and Sergeant Trimble. The officers traced them to a tent at the outskirts of Wetlierstones ; but they bolted as tho officers neared the tent, and Burgess (or Hill) and Kelly (or Hannon) escaped. Trimble had previously noticed a very lonely tent four or five miles from Wetherstones, and he made up his mind to search it. He and Bracken got to the tent just before daylight. Bracken got off his horse, undid the tent, crept in, revolver in hand, and found the two men asleep. They awoke to find themselves completely covered by Bracken's revolver ; and they believed in the earnestness of Bracken's threat, that the first who stirred would certainly die on the instant, and that the chances were strongly in favour of the fate of the second being similar. * Meanwhile, Trimble had crept in behind the villians, and taken from under their heads two revolvers and two guns. Then their capture was easy. Burgess and Kelly were found guilty of shooting with intent to kill, and also of stealing a gun ; and they were sentenced to penal servitude for three years and a-half. They were discharged from prison on the 11th September last. " Early in 1863, Burgess once or twice caused great danger in the Dunedin gaol. Once, he contrived to communicate with the notorious Garrcttand others, so as to concert a breaking out; and he contrived to break through a thick stone wall and enter the adjoining cell. On another occasion, he and Garrett each barricaded the door of his cell, and set the officers at defiance until the doors had been battered down. Those doors, and others in the gaol, then opened inwardB — a stupid arrangement, which was speedily altered. Burgcsa was flogged j and he bore

his punishment with seeming indifference. It may be said here, that Garret t, who for a long while absolutely would not do work of any kind, has for some time been thoroughly-well behaved, and has workod regularly and hard. " Sullivan was found Not Guilty ; and as soon as he was at liberty lie sailed for Sydney. The telegram received last evening was the first intimation to the police here that he had returned to New Zealand ; and now, unfortunately, ho and his mates are charged with murder. All three of the men have undergone long periods of penal servitude in Victoria ; and Burgess's wound in the back was received while he and several others were attempting to escape from the hulk in Hobson's Bay. Burgess was formely a mate of the notorious Captain Melville; and he has the reputation of being one of tho most cool and daring criminals in the Australian Colonies."