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Otago Daily Times, Issue 3686, 27 November 1873, Page 4

In another column we publish the substance; of an interesting letter recently sent to Auckland by the Alexandra correspondent of the New Zealand Herald. The letter relates to a visit paid by the writer to Te Kooti; whose movements -have for several years been surrounded with mystery. It is nearly three years since the gallant Major Ropata and his band of Ngatiporotis hunted Te Kbcra and his few followers through the fastnesses of the East Coast. It wis said that he reached and took up his abode in the King country, but his exact whereabouts has never been made known ; nor for some considerable time has he been seen in the flesh. It will not therefore be surprising to hear that the account of the Herald's correspondent's visit has been read with great interest in the North. Te Kooti and his companions, we are fold, distrust the Europeans ; and although the correspondent implies that this distrust is due to thfe wrong-doings of the Native Office, it cannot be expected that Te. Kopir will have much faith in the Pakeha so long as a price is set upon his head. His anxiety to come to terms with the Government is but natural. Distrusting, probably, his own comi panions, his life must indeed be a I miserable one; and his own state of physical weakness will no doubt be to hid eyes a sufficient reason for making peace with his enemies. The defence he puts forth, " that he never murdered," but "that all warfare was under his direction," may be a perfectly sound one according to Native custom, but tested by the standards of British and Colonial law, we are inclined to think that some of the deeds of slaughter committed on the j East Coast, in which Te Kooti is known to have taken an active part, were of a kind that would undoubtedly send him to the scaffold. There is little chance that his request for a trial in "England will be granted. Were it otherwise, the London public would have provided for them acase, even more sensational in some respects than that of the Claimant. It would be a somewhat novel point to have raised in an English Court that the slaying of an inoffensive person in cold blood is an act of warfare. Such, however, would be the defence of Purtjkutu were he placed on trial for the murder of Sullivan ; and in like manner no doubt would Te Kooti's counsel plead were he indicted for the part he took in the Poverty Bay massacre.