The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIX, Issue 1950, 16 October 1863, Page 3

The Daily Southern Cross.

MICRO NON r , UHO. " If 1 liixro been extinguished, yet there r!no A thoiisuml bcxcons from the spark I bore."

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 18G3.

Ditkixg the last thveo clays il lias been our unhappy duly to chronicle the occurrence of thiee barbourous murders, one of a gallant soldier as he was carelessly walking homewards, -one of an old man whose lighting days ought to have been past, aild v. ho. probably, thought 'of nothing less than of lighting at the moment of his murder ; and lastly, of a settler engaged in the ordinary avocation of fencing on a homestead, so near our camp as to seem safe. It is needless for us to enter upon a recapitulation of the former acts of barbarism, which have chainclerized the. present struggle, but we may remind our readers th.it these are but the repetitions of the course adopted by the Maoris in the beguung of the struggle, when they signalized the commencement of hostilities by the murder of old men and children. The recurrence of such n stale of things is a serious matter, and one which ought to b,o rega-ded us calling for some measures cither to prevent the posibility ot' such horrors by the remo\al of the cause, or to guard against it by the pievention of our own men from going into such positions of danger unprepared. The question remains, however, why do these things still occur, as if in horrible- mockery of our expeditions, w Inch cannot, it would seem,pre\<ent them? Our answ er is asimple one ; wchave good reason to believe that b\iih scouring, as yet practised by our fuicob, cannot, and will not," from its very nature, remove the incessant danger of stray murders. A column or a company of rille rangers and foresters may, and when well commanded, certainly (as we have seen) w ill effect the clearance, in a certain sense, of any piece of forest land iv the couniry of large forces of murderous and plundering rebels who have no afi'ection for hard knocks. "What it will not do, however, is to clear out parties of three or four or half-a-dozen natives who lurk like w ild cits round the edge of the forest, and endeavour to slake their diabolical thirst for blood by the savage murder of the helplessly old and the helplessly young who may afford an easy and a safe prey. One thing they have found out, and only one, which is that no bu&h corps ai at present constituted can clear the forest of this class of enemy, which may indeed be termed the vermin of Maori warfare. A contemporary, we peis ceive, has urged l)>e v.^o of the aboriginal native of Australia, and the suggestion may be worthy of consideration and trial, although, we confess, we do not entertain any very sanguine hopes of its success. The New Zealand forest ir so utterly diverse in every respect from that of Australia or Tasmania that we hold it to be no proof that a native Australian could trnok men in this country's tangled forests, that tie could do so with unerring sagacity iv his native country, or under circumstances similar to those of that country. In this we may bo wrong, and w e should gladly sco the experiment made to tost it ; but if we want to save life from the attacks of such murderous wretches as those who do actually lurk about for the purpose of destroying it, who are branded by the better class of their own warriors as ruffians, we must employ some move certain agency to assist our bushrangeig in their efforts to clear the forest of such, wretches. The observation oF our own men is utterly at fault in the matter ; the sagacity of the aboriginics of Australia will w e fear pfpvp but littlo bolter ; if the thing is to be douo some other sagacity must be brought to bear upon tho case. What shall it be? Shall we be content to accept the grand high-sounding words of a southern contemporary who fulminates forth his wrath at the idea of a dag being iised to .save human life by at all events terrifying by fv few examples the wretches who hunt 'for it on the edges of the forest ? Shall wo prefer the sitting down' with our hands in our pockets to hear of daily murders of grey-haired men and young boys, to making uso of that sagacity with which heaven has' endowed the dog, to Eojnl tfye woy to our bu&lmmgers to the luring x'laces of the murderers ? For our own part we utterly contemn the idea. We utterly ignore such philanthrophy which for the sake of the sound of a word would sacrifice precious likes that might otherwise be saved. Wo do not bplieve that all the tylaori race- are a set o£ murderous yillaih.s' ; 'tlieyo is no proof thai the better class of warriors have anything to do with such acts, and we would fain see them saved from the indiscriminating vengeance which any continuous course of a kind like that followed during the last three days must bring ■upon the whole people. Vengeance when taken into a people's own hands, is a horrible thing, and. wo w<jul.d save b'bth'the' Sla'pri ' and tlie colonist from it if possible. This is not to be 3one by talking of public opinion iv 'England, but it maybe done by keeping the overpowering tpmptatipa o,f muwierucl fVienfls anA velatifes, out p'f the people's way. Wo do nqt proiioßO \o pull down Maoris with blood-hounds, mt we po prppase tp traak' such Maoris ns have Jjoen guilty of these thveo horrible- murders to ±i»«l,i lurking places, by every means within our reach The Horror must ,not go on : if men can check it well and good, if they cannot, unassißtedi lefc tfw¥ hW * hat wwtwc* the* need,