DUNEDIN.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 76, 21 September 1865, Page 9

DUNEDIN.

(From our own Correspondent^)

Monday, September 18, 1865,

The prettiest night scene in Dunedin at present is the two ' lighter' lamps immediately in front of the Exhibition Building, in Great King-street, while as far as the eye can reach, north and south of them, the said street is almost in total darkness ! Milton's sublime conception of "darkness visible" is therefore on view every night in Great King-street, and is really well worth going to see. The effect of the light from these lamps on the Great Exhibition Building reminds me of one of Martin's famous mystical pictures called the " Doom of Babylon," and leads one quite naturally to think of the very marked and daily increasing state of depression in a city not a hundred miles from where I now write.

The Criminal Sessions are ended. Jarvey has been convicted and sentenced to death, and people are beginning to ask — Will he be hung ? This is the third case in this Province in which a capital conviction has followed trial, and in two of these cases the sentence of death has been commuted to that o: imprisonment for life. The first was that awfully revolting murder on the banks of the river Molyneux, in which there was not the shalow of an extenuating circumstance in faror of the murderer ; but the sentence was commuted, because it was the first capital c mviction in the Province ! The second was that on the banks of the Mataura river, where Whitehead, under great provocation, dealt a fatal blow to his mate, Stewart. The capital sentence here was commuted on the ground of that provocation, but against the decided opinion of the judge who presided at the t ial, an opinion always considered and acted upon at home. Now this kind of work would seem to indicate that, so far as regards the Middle Island of New Zealand, the Government would like to establish the total abolition of capital punishment ! No one v.ho has carefully read the evidence in Jarvey's case can have the slightest doubt of his enormous guilt ; but would it be fair to hang one cruel murderer and allow his equally cruel predecessors to live 1 Just fancy Fratson, the Molyneux murderer, and Whitehaad, the Mataura murderer : the former, a3 chief cook in Dunedin gaol, preparing t'ie last breakfast poor Jarvey has to eat, and the latter chipping stones, it may be, on Bell Hill ; while Jarvey, whose crime is not the shadow of a degree worse than theirs, has to face the cruel rope, destined for him by his fellow-man to sever his silver cord of life. It can hardly be. I for one protest against it. I hold that the Governor of this Province having been pleased to commute the sentence of death passed \ipon Fratson and Whitehead, must, in justice, commute the capital sentence passed upon Jarvey. And it must further be made known over this island that in future all murderers, except in great extenuating circumstances, and with the recommendation of judge and jury, shall suffer the just penalty of a righteous law. I recommend the matter to Mr. Bathgate, who interested himself, and so successfully, j in relieving Whitehead from the painful necessity of ascending the scaffold ' for doom ;' and I would merely add, that if he places himself in front of a relieving party for Jarvey on the grounds stated by me he will be supported here, there, and everywhere.

The West Coast Rush, still goes a-head, and news recently received from both Hokitika and the Grey are very encouraging. The 'Daily Times' of to-day announces to Europe — it being mail day, and other papers coinciding — ' that the West Coast goldlield is to be a permanent one !' This wonderful Otacron ion advertising, and 'partly* as well ' party' illuminated Jupiter, has, since June' :ast, been trying now and again to run down tne vVest Coast rush in the neighboring Province, and it has been aided in a certain way

by ridiculous Warden's reports as to great finds of gold, demand for wages men at high rates, provisions cheap, &c, &c : but all to no purpose. Why not let us have the truth at once, viz. : that altho' trade and commerce in Dunedin are at present awful bad, and the up-country trade at a dead-lock ; while the diggers of Otago are leaving in hundreds for rich auriferous soil, there is room for ten times their number within her gold-bearing territory.

This is mail day for home : a sweet and dear word, however distant its reality : and the post-office was besieged this forenoon with senders of looked-for letters via Southampton and Marseilles. We have no news of the arrival at the Bluff of the English mail, 'with news from home,' but it is hourly expected.

Rain and mud have gone hand in hand during the greater portion of the week, but to-day is fine and bids fair to continue.