THE MANGERE MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12269, 13 May 1903, Page 4

THE MANGERE MYSTERY.

We have no desire at the present time to enter into the question of whether the police have been as alert as they ought to have been in investigating what is now known as the Mangere mystery. But we must protest against the blame for the complete failure to find any clue to those who so maltreated an aged woman that she died as a result being thrown on the press. At the inquest on Monday Detective Maddern said that he first heard about the affair on March 31, that the police in the neighbouring districts had been scouring the Maori settlement, but the youths they were after had been chased away by the newspaper reports. Then the coroner interposes the remark, " Publicity is bad, then, at times," to which the detective replied: "In some cases publicity did good, but in the present instance its effect had been very bad." Now, how do the facts stand 1 The outrage was committed on February 25 ; it was discovered by a neighbour on February 26, when the woman was removed to the house of a friend, and the police were at once made aware of the circumstances by Dr. Scott. On March 16 the woman's statement was taken down by a constable. On March 25 Mrs. Moms' dying depositions were taken down by a justice of the peace. Now, all this time what was being done by the press to frustrate the ends of justice % Nothing whatever. The first notice of the affair which was published was in the Herald of April 11, six weeks after the event, when one of our staff was.informed of the circumstances by a resident of Mangere. If we had got to know of it when the police were told, the perpetrators of the outrage would certainly have been ta,ken. There does not appear to have been any search or inquiry made till after the publication in our columns. In these circumstances we think that it is altogether absurd for the police to blame premature publication of the facts for preventing them from apprehending the perpetrators of this outrage. The detective stated that copies of the newspapers had been found in the settlement. Surely that was natural enough. When an account is published of an outrage having taken place in the neighbourhood, and that Maoris were blamed, it is a matter of course that the natives would get the paper and read it. But what was done between February 26 and \ April nj ]