THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 9,1859.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 188, 9 August 1859, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 9,1859.

Our little province bus begun to forward eiuinis to some considerable amount of public attention. What between niarislaughteri votes'' of censure, Vigilance' Committees, desired dissolution of the Provincial. Council,' and' suicide,, we may assume tHat though numerically small, we .have so learnt the ingenuous, arts that our manners areirapuUy approaching, that .desirable state of civilization which it generally takes a large and populous district to furnish evidences of. • White kid gloves vary in value very much at the eiitirgs of our Supreme Court; and while we find that upon one or two occasions the Sheriff has to run about to seek a pair of seven-and a-quarter, or whatever size Mr. Justice Johnston may delight in, another time he has consideiable doubts as to the necessity of giving an,order for a black cap. It will bo seen, on reference to our Police Report, that a William Kite; a resident of Richmond, was brought before .the Piesident Magistrate last Saturday,'inconsequence of an information laid against him by his wife. It appears that the said William was rather a gay Lothario, and completed the number of his conquests by so. ; duoing the wife of a person named Gibbs, who happened to -be a neighbor. This Gibbs, the* inquest upon whose death ie recorded in

.other columns, like 100 many here, seems to have been a fieo liver ; and yet it can easily be ,=■ proved that he was a man of a kind and suscep. tiblo nature. The manner in which his house was fitted, not only with necessaries, but with the marks of a more than usual supply of comforts; proves that no depression of mind caused iby poverty or want was the occasion of this rash act on his part. The evidence given on the first day is but little conclusive, and the medical testimony is anything but satisfactory. We are told that the deceased might, or might not, have received his death from one of two couses—the one the injury; inflicted on the throat; the other, drowning in tlie well. Mr. Laking, the surgeon, who attended very properly, wished for a post mortem examination, and it is upon tiie evidence adduced ou the second day's inquest, that the leading features of-the- case rest. Carefully examining this, as adduced yesterday, we do not find that there is sufficient evidence for the public to find fault with the ver- ; diet brought in, and yet we may say-that no', casa of suicide ever offered so many grounds for doubt. We have,-firstly,''the desertion of the. rife with a near neighbour: this might be argued as a sufficient reason for temporary,hsanify on the part of Thomas Gibbs, and, asl can be proved, that almost immediately on his wife's desertion he took steps to pursue her and her patamot;r, we may fairly argue that such an event causod him considerable'excitement. It would not be difficult to show that he came to Nelson, from which .port-he.expected this woman to take ship, and there, in company of the police, sought her out everywhere, He found not bis wife, but some of the property whiolr she had carried-away with her; and we niuy well imagine that a man, whatever his faults might have been, would feel, and that deeply, the solitary position he was left in, when he had to return to a home which bad been that of himself and wife and found it desolate. Let soft earth rest upon his ashes ; but to those who now living have morally caused the death of this man, there could be much said, and we feel that no one who reads the evidence would consider any word too harsh for the expression of a feding upon their conduct. We will grant that it is not the duty of a newspaper to offer a sermon upon acts of private iniquity; but wheu thoso acts are so forcibly brought before piir notice, that a judicial meeting is the cousequence, we can. recognise them as facts, and therefore remark upon them.Wo may be.thankful that the crime of murder or manslaughter will uot again stain our list at the next sessions, so far as we know at present, and therefore we will leave it to the consciences of the man and woman, whose net destroyed the reason and morallymurdertd the man who was husband to one, and friend to the other, as to whether they can for the future face God'a sunlight or man's gaze. \ ■ '