SUPREME COURT.

Waka Maori, Volume 11, Issue 2, 26 January 1875, Page 22

SUPREME COURT.

SENTENCE OF DEATH PASSED ON A MAORI. In number 21 of the Waka Maori, our readers will remember, we published, a telegraphic notice of the apprehension, at Orakei, in the Province of Auckland, on the 17th of October last, of a Maori named Newton, for the murder of a Maori girl named Henrietta Te Puni. The prisoner was tried in the Supreme Court, at Auckland, on the Bth and Oth of January instant, and sentence of death passed on him for the crime which he had committed. It appeared from the evidence of Mereana, the mother of the deceased, that on the evening of the 13tb

October last, at Kohimarama, she asked the prisoner to go in search of Henrietta. Newton went away to find Henrietta, and returned after 9 o'clock to her house with the deceased, calling out, " Mereana! Henrietta has been struck by a Maori Satan." Mereana was very much distressed, and began to cry, but did not go towards the deceased. "When Henrietta was taken into the house she was gasping for breath, and when her head was lifted upright it fell back again. Henere, with whom witness was living, took Henrietta in his arms, and Newton went and got a bucket of water. Shortly afterwards death occurred. The only words Henrietta spoke were, " kakino (bad) the pipe," which were uttered just before she died. Henere was smoking at the time. The prisoner was in no way related to the deceased. He desired that no one but himself should have her for a wife. When Newton went to look for Henrietta witness asked him not to beat her. He was in the habit of beating her. The witness said she was a Ngapuhi, and that Newton belonged to the Arawa tribe. Several other witnesses gave evidence, all pointing to the prisoner as the murderer. Several persons had seen him with her just before the crime was committed. One little girl saw them on the ground not far from Mereana's whare. The prisoner was kneeling down, and Henrietta was lying close to him, with her head on his knee. She was moaning. This witness went and sat down within about six feet of them, but was immediately sent away by Newton. He said, "What are you doing here? G-o away." A medical man who examined the body gave evidence that the skin around the neck was very much blackened, the left eye protruded, the whites of both eyes were completely reddened, the tongue protruded from the mouth, and the teeth were almost clenched upon it. There were other injuries about the neck and spine, which he said would be liable to be produced if the prisoner had given the neck of the deceased a sudden wrench on his knee. The prisoner was defended by a lawyer who delivered an able address to the jury on his behalf. After His Honor, Chief Justice Arney, had summed up the evidence, the jury retired to consider their verdict, and after about half-an-hour's deliberation, returned into Court with a verdict of" Gruilty." The prisoner said, " With regard to the word that I must die, all I have to say is, that I am willing. I am not afraid." His Honor then assumed the black cap, and sentenced the prisoner as follows :—The jury after a patient trial have found you guilty of the murder of Henrietta Te Puni. In the statement you have made you have said nothing that leads the Court to doubt the propriety of that verdict, but you have said much which will lead all of us to believe that the verdict is true. The Government assigned able counsel to defend you. That counsel has examined the witnesses, and urged to the jury every argument that mind could think of to disprove your guilt. But the jury found that you cruelly murdered that poor young girl, whose mother sent you forth to protect and bring her home. You came back to the afflicted mother with the falsehood that the girl was stricken by Satan. Was not that Satan in your own soul?

The law is the same for the Maori as for the European —that he who is guilty of murder shall surely die. I therefore implore you to employ the short time that you may live on this earth in striving to make peace with that Grod whose vengeance you pretended had descended upon the poor girl, for the sentence of this Court is that you be taken hence to the gaol at Mount Eden, and there that you be hanged bythe neck until you are dead. And" may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.—The prisoner, who maintained a most stolid and calm demeanour throughout, was then removed from the dock. & ' It was stated that the prisoner was fifty years of age, and it appeared that jealousy incited him to commit the murder.

A. Medical Monkey.—All previous narratives of intelligent proceedings on the part of animals are thrown into the shade by the following account of a medical monkey, described by the Oriental correspondent of a London journal:—He one day saw a monkey holding a snake by the throat, and rubbinoits in the dirt; but as the ground was moist and damp, the snake was not readily killed by this mode of punishment. Every now and then the monkey would look most knowingly in the face of the reptile to see if it was dead; and in the course of one of these investigations the monkey received a severe bite. This angered him, and he speedily despatched the snake. But its coils had hardly relaxed before the monkey reeled and fell prostrate and apparently in all the agonies of death by poison. i3y this time an aged-looking monkey arrived on the scene, and, after examining the bodies of the snake and its victim, he immediately started for some neighbouring bushes, where he collected some leaves ot the plant known as the red cherchita. These lie rapidly and skilfully wrapped into a sort of pill which he administered to his snake-bitten companion' who speedily revived, and walked off with his physician. The story is declared to come from trustworthy sources.—(Southern Mercury.) The two Maori carvers who have b<?en so loner engaged at the Christchurch Museum, in the con* struction of a Maori house, have returned to their home m Waiapu ; and the building is now being fatted up with show cases for ornaments. The buildmg is pronounced one of the best specimens of Maori architecture m existence.—(JVeto Zealand Times.) We hear that the disease called " measles" is prevalent m the Bay of Islands district, and that many of the Ngapuhi people have been carried off by it. it is a cftitagious disease, characterized by red roots on the skin, and accompanied by much fever. Persons affected with this disease should not be suffered to take cold drinks, and should be kept out ! a - r ' ai ? d above all the J should be withheld from plunging into cold water—a practice so common among the" Maoris when suffering irom feverish diseases. This but drives the disease into the system, and the result is generally death. The Maoris have been repeatedly warned against this fatal practice; but when the body is in a high state of fever they will persist in plunging into some cold stream of water, and they die, destroyed by their own