The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MAR. 10, 1866.

New Zealander, Volume XXIV, Issue 2610, 10 March 1866, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MAR. 10, 1866.

He just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aiiu'st at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

After a most careful, considerate, and patient trial, extending over three days, the jury have brought in a verdict of wilful murder against James Stack, and with that verdict we do not helieve there will be one dissentient voice. The train of circumstantial evidence all pointed to the one fact, and with that evidence it would have been impossible for the jury to have come to any other decision % than that which they recorded. And we were not astonished to find that the prisoner received that sentence stoically—for a man who could commit the dastardly crime of which he was guilty, and then live for nearly three months in the same cottage that his victin s had occupied —and on the very land in which those victims were hidden —must have a heart which nothing short of a miracle could touch. We have never, in the whole course of our experience, heard of a case where so much brutality was exhibited towards the innocent victims of a murderer's devilish cruelty—for to have accomplished his fell purpose, the convict now under sentence, must have fallen upon his benefactors ruthlessly in the night, and slain them one by one with the hammer of which evidence was given, but which could not be afterwards found. In the dead of night must this fiend in human shape have approached his mother-in-law, and while she lay wrapped in slumber must he have inflicted the blow which at once deprived her of reason and of life. Then creeping like a noisome snake to the room in which his younger victims lay, this man ■of iron purpose must have struck his relatives as they slept, taking probably the eldest first, and, as in the case of the mother, depriving him at one dull blow of that fair life breathed into his nostrils by the Creator. With the middle boy there appears to have been perhaps, a sudden awakening, ; for we find that besides the awful blow upon the head, the cruel knife had been drawn across the neck—and so his young life passed away. The tale of the youngest son —John —is wrapped in mystery ; but there can be no doubt that he shared a death in common with ! his brothers, although his body I has not been recovered to tell j the same sad tale. Then what i must have been the feelings of the murderer, alone with the I bodies of bis four helpless victims ; Plotting, no doubt, as I to the disposal of the bodies and j the removal of all foul stains, | the arch fiend who could comI mit such a crime would doubti less calmly look unmoved upon the havoc he had made, and j even plot fresh deviltries for the time to come. But, all cunning as he was, he over-reached j himself, and when the officers of justice were once upon his track it was difficult indeed for him to escape. The motive for a crime so black is buried in the darkest obscurity, for it is hard to believe that the obtaining of a few paltry pounds would inj duce any man less than a demon ' of the blackest dye to commit a j crime of such foul atrocity ; j and now that the sentence of ! the law is passed, the sooner i society is rid of such a wretch the better.