THE CONDEMNED MAORI PRISONERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1687, 14 May 1866, Page 3

THE CONDEMNED MAORI PRISONERS.

(From the Wellington Independent, May 12.) There are doubtless a few people in England who will cry out against the colonists on learning that five of the natives concerned in the Opotiki and Whakatane murders have been left for execution, but we believe the great majority of our fellow countrymen will recognise Sir George Grey's decision to be one in which justice is tempered with mercy. No one can say that these prisoners have not been treated with the utmost consideration. First tried and condemned by Court Martial, the penalty which their crimes demanded was not exacted, and they were again put upon their trial at the bar of the Supreme Court. Out of thirty-six arraigned twenty-nine were convicted of murder and sentenced to death, six being recommended to mercy. The evidence adduced at the trial was conclusive against at least twenty-three of those men as having been either principals or accessories More the fact in the murders of Yolkner, Fulloon, and the seaman Ned, but though it would be just to let them die at the hands of the executioner, yet Sir George Grey has only left the worst to that fate, and commuted the sentences of the rest to various periods of penal servitude, varying from four years to a life confinement. The slayers of the Rev. Mr. Yolkner—Mokomoko, Heremita, and Hakaraia—are to be hanged, but Penetito, a deaf and dumb boy, who was also, condemned, is to be a prisoner for life. "To youMokomoko, Heremita, and Hakaraia," said the judge in passing sentence, "I dare not, hold out a hope of mercy. The murder of which you are found guilty was perpetrated on a meek man, a prop'-et of the one true God, and was attended with atrocities which have brought disgrace upon the Maori name. I will not describe those cruelties from this judgment seat, You know them, for you took part in ihem, and already all good Maoris disown both this murder and the chief actors in it." These words will find an echo throughout the colony, and it will be universally admitted that such men are beyond the pale of human mercy. The same might perhaps be said of others besides tlie two natives concerned in the murders of Fulloon and the seaman Ned, who are o die. But we will not stop to cavil at Sir George Grey's decision, and we only allude to it for the purpose of pointing out to our friends in England that if there has been any error at all, it has been on the side of mercy. The execution of these five men will net only punish some terrible crimes, but it will teach the turbulent natives that what they think an act of war, we look upon as murder, and hang the perpetrators.