THE EAST COAST TRAGEDY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 235, 15 December 1888, Page 2

THE EAST COAST TRAGEDY.

Inspector Kiely arrived in Gisborne yesterday, from Awanui, and went on to Napier last night. He has decided to leave the matter in the hands of Sergeant Bullen. The trial of the two prisoners will be continued on Monday, and it committed they will be brought down to Gisborne by the Australia on Thursday night. What on earth they wanted the Inspector up the Coast for, or what possible good he anticipated he could do in such a country and with such peculiar circumstances, is more than our limited wisdom can divine. The Inspector may be all there in organising a staff aud conducting city business, but it is really too much to expect that he could be anything else but an obstruction in making a personal visit to Waipiro, unless he sent Sergeant Bullen back to Gisborne and took the task on bis own hands. Instead of having a couple of superior police officers engaged on the work one competent man with good assistance from constables well up to this peculiar kind ot work, and with the co-operation of the chiefs, would ba more successful than all the figureheads in the Police Department. Statements have been made in Gisborne, too, that the police had given their opinion that the only way there appeared any prospect of discovering the criminal was by offering a substantial reward and a free pardon to the informer. If Inspector Kiely was responsible for this statement it proves what erroneous ideas can be held by one in bis position when he bas this class of work io deal with. When Maoris do league together to commit crimes they can stick to one another batter than European scoundrels can in the face of a reward for informing, but to offer a reward in this case would have bern a slight upon the chiefs and a great temptation to the less honest natives to oxmmitt perjury (on which . point they are unfortunately not very lar) for ttxe sake of obtaining the Happily the evidence against Haira i» clear that there appears no need to look further for the murderer, but all these little circumstances prove what futile attempts may be made to detect crime when it it presented in such form. News from Awanui informs us that there is a marked contrast between the two prisoners now in custody. Hohep tis quite jolly, and shakes hands and converses freely with the other natives, being convinc rd th it he will soon get off, and of which there appears to be every prospect. Haira, on the other hand, is sullen and m-ross; ho will not take notice of the other natives, and they treat him with scorn and contempt. The chain of evidence against him is suffic’ently strong to convinces ordinary mind that ha i. the principal er prit, and it appears tolerably certain that he will be committed and convicted. It committed the prisoners are to be lodged in the Gisborne gaol udtil the sitting of the Supreme Court. The Gisborne correspondent of the Napier News gives Hohepa te Piri, one of the suspects, the following character:—He is thearn of a Maori lay reader, but enjoys a most unenviable notoriety. He is wall known ashav. ing been concerned in several robberies up the Coast. Some of his exploits are mo.t remarkable. On one occasion ha was engag'd in a robbery when be was surprised by several natives. Having a gun with him he fired two shots amongst them and then got away to the bush. He waited until the affair had blown orer, and when he returned to his tribe managed to induce them to screen h>m. On another occasion he descended the chimney at the Southern Cross petroleum boro and stole a lot of olothes and a gun. This time all the polioa were hoodwinked by his friends, and he got off scott free. A darker crime was al o committed later on. Lite one night he went to his uncle's whare where there was money and ammunition, and, disguised as a Hiuhau, he demanded the money and the oartridg a. The uncle, an old mm, siid “ Surely you a e no Hatiha'i,” and retard to give up the money, whereupon Hohipi tired at him, the bullet grazing the old Maori's scalp. Oree more the criminal took to the bush, and or.ee again he managed to smooth the aff dr over. The New Zealand Herald has the followtrg article in reference to the murders:—Unhappily the sensationalism of brutal murdor is not confined to Whitechap.-I, and the terror now pervading the East Coast, though in a more limited community, is as keenly felt among the scattered European familiea in those outposts of civilisation as that inspired by the undiscovered murderer in London. The Maori nature has exhibited illustrations of ferocity, but hitherto they have been con fined to periods and districts in which war exsisted ; and if this dreadful deed has proceeded from the hand of a Maori, then indeed it shows a new departure that may well strike fear into the hearts of isolated settlers in native districts. But though the indioat ons seem to point to a Maori as the perpetrator of this ferocious triplo murder, all those familiar with the relations of the two races, and with the Maori character, are not prepared to accept the conjunction ot robbery and murder as characteristic of Maori criminality. A Maori may slay aud a Maori may rob, but that a Maori should murder for the sake of robbery, and do so iu cool blood, without having had the previous reason for such violent action, is not in accordance with what has been observed of the aboriginal character. That there are Eutopxans of reckless charac'er always to be found on tho border land of civilisation is well known, and it is quite possible that this crime, so promptly attributed to a native, may have been the bloody work of a European. The unhappy victims of ibis outrage appear to have been highly popular with the Maoris, aud unless iu some sudden outbreak of passion—excited, as lias been suggested, by a refusal it may be to give credit—a would have been unlikely to have trated the capital crime and followed with robbery. At all events, the incident l one of the most piinfui that has stained tho history of New Zealand for many years, and cannot but have a very disturbing effect on the progress of pioneer settlement, as showing the serious dangers to which isolated and unprotected settlers in remote districts are exposed.