The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-13 00:00:00

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

The following narrative, relating to Joshua New-
burn, who has recently retorted to this country, after
having been captured by the natives of New Zealand,
and after having served for nearly nine years and a half
under the chiefs of various tribes, during which period
he underwent the cruel torture of tattooing, is authen-
tic, and may be depended upon. There is something
so truly extraordinary in the history of this young man's
life, during his nine years and a half'sresidence in the in-
terior of the island of New Zealand, that a few observa-
tions relating to him cannot fail to prove extremely in-
teresting.
Joshua Newburn is the eldest son of the late
Mr. John Henry Newborn, for many years a free-
man of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths,
in the City of London, and was born in the
parish of St. Luke on the 27th of March, 1817.
His family are still living in that pariah in respectable
circumstances. He received a plain education at an
Hoxton academy (Gloucester House), under a Mr.
Pearce, and was afterwards apprenticed to a gas-fitter
in the city ; but his inclinations being seaward his
father caused his indentures to be cancelled, and on
the 27th of February, 1832, he was articled for the
term of three years to a Captain Plant, master of a
whaler, bound to the South Seas, named the Marquis
of Lansdowne. After a voyage of three months and
fifteen days from the date of leaving Portsmouth, the
ship reached the Bay of Islands on the New Zealand
coast, where she brought up, and young Newburn, who
was then but 15 years of age, having suffered much sick-
ness on board, obtained leave to go ashore to seek me-
dical advice. As there were several canoes manned
with natives around the ship, trading with the crew,
Newborn took the advantage of bargaining with a run-
gateree, or lead boatman, to take him ashore ; but after
they had left the ship, instead of the men rowing into
the mouth of the harbour to the English settlements,
they made away for a sandy beach at some distance,
off, and, having dragged him on shore, they stripped
him quite naked, beating him at the same time with
their paddles, till they left him insensible ; they then
took to the canoe and made off. As soon as he had
partially recovered from the effects of their violence
ho wandered about the island in quest of a human
habitation, desirous, if possible, of alighting upon
some white man. This he continued to do for two
days and nights, making the best of his way through
forests of fern, breast high, which (he being quite be-
reft of clothing), shockingly chafed and lacerated his
body. On the third morning, as he sat under a tree,
famished with hunger, and exhausted with fatigue, be
was perceived by two native youths, the sons of a chief
living hard by, who, pitying his condition, conducted
him to the hut of their father, who was lying sick upon
a mat. Seeing that he (Newburn) was destitute of
clothing, he furnished him with an old pair of canvass
trousers and a tattered shirt, and having afforded him
such refreshment as his circumstances would admit of
he sent him to a neighbouring chief, who, he said, would
use him well.

To follow the life and adventures of this young man
from that period up to the time of his quitting the
country for England ; to detail the chequered circum-
stances he met with during the nine years and upwards
he served with various tribes of the island ; to depict
the scenes he witnessed, the imminent perils he encoun-
tered, the severe, almost incredible hardships he en-
dured, the dreadful privations he underwent, and the
miraculous escapes he experienced, would occupy the
space of a large volume. He is now in London, and
although he speaks his native language correctly,
yet it is with difficulty that he at times can find
words wherewith to express his ideas. His body
is cicatrized in many places from the wounds he
has from time to time received from the spears and
knives of the natives whilst he was engaged under
different chiefs, contending with militant tribes ; and his
face has undergone the horrible operation of tattooing,
which gives him the appearance of a New Zealand
Chief. Although he is now only in his 2ith year,
from the acute sufferings he has undergone (having
been at one period exposed for 14 months in the bush),
he appears considerably older, and his constitutiou
has been so severely shattered, that it is quite impos-
sible that he could have subsisted another year had
he remained on the island. He speaks the New Zea-
land language with the utmost fluency, and became
ultimately so thoroughly initiated into the ways, habits,
and manners of the natives, that they ideotfied him
with themselves, and styled him by a term of distinction
" Mootooah," which means " the tattooed spirit." In
describing the scenes ha witnessed among the tribes he
is exceedingly simple, and imparts what information
may be sought of him in a very clear and artless manner.
He states that the first instance of human butchery
he witnessed in the island was shortly after his arrival.
A canoe landed a crew of natives whilst he was stand-
ing on the beach near a pab, or village, named Korn-
zaika ; he perceived two females among them, who were
particularly good looking ; among them was a very
powerfully made man, who held a tomahawk in his
hand, and who followed close upon the heels of the women
as they priceeded on the beach, when he suddenly
stepped before them and with one blow with his weapon
nearly severed one female's head from her body ; ho then
performed the same tragical operation upon the other
female, and left them weltering in their blood upon the
beach. As soon as he had sufficiently collected himself
he ran home to the pah, appalled at what he had seen,
and communicated, as well as he could, the circum•
stance to his chief, fearing that himself and his tribe
might be beset by the party. Upon inquiry, however,
it was discovered that the women were the slaves of a
neighbouring chief, who had given his command that
they should be tomahawked out of his own settlement
for their disobeying his orders with regard to his chil-
dren. He, moreover, states that some time after-
wards, when ho was at a pah called " Warakaika," he
bore witness to one of the most revolting acts of
butchery that it could be destined for the human eye to
behold. The chief of the tribe under which he served
had waged war with the chief of another tribe located
in a pah a short distance off them. They sallied forth
just before day-break, armed with muskets, spears, and
tomahawks (for the natives, he says, when they want to
surprise an enemy, consider this the most seasonable
time, entertaining an idea that sleep lays its hand more
heavily upon the slumberer at that particular period
than any other that is appropriated to repose) ; and
the chief having fired off his musket on their arrival
at the pab, as a signal for the commencement of
hostilities, they all began the war dance, which
was kept up for about two minutes, when they fired
their muskets into the mat-houses of the enemy,
and then took to their spears and tomahawks, and
after a desperate struggle the pah surrendered, and the
tribe were made prisoners and bound. Then the chief
of the tribe went round to each prisoner and despatched
the whole of them, one after another, by strkiog them
on the bead with his tomahawk. He, moreover, adds

that there were among the number of the captives one
chief of high rank, as also a seer or diviner, and a noted
warrior, who were all three seated upon a rush mat by
themselves. The chief of his tribe advanced towards
them, and with his tomahawk tapped their several heads
and drank the blood as it ran from them. Another
man of his tribe took out the eyes of the wretched vic-
tims and ate them raw, life not being out of the former.
They finally cut off their limbs and quartered them,
ready for the oven.
But the most dreadful feature in this act of massacre

was that of a man and woman bound together, the
former being the son of the opulent chief of the pah,
the latter his wife, who held a child, about nine months
old, in her arms. This young warrior had murdered
with his own hand, several of the tribe to which he
(Newburn) belonged ; and having dragged the woman,
after having untied her from her husband, into an ad-
joining compartment, and after having committed the
grossest acts of violence upon her, they tore the infant
from her protection, and takingit up by the legs battered
its head against the sides of the hut. As to the unfor-
tunate husband, they cut slices of flesh from his body,
and, thrusting the same into his mouth, asked him if it
"was good, and tasted well." He stopped in this place
for two days with his tribe, during which time they
were employed in cooking their enemies, in such a man-
ner as to keep them for some length of time. This
process is performed by first cutting away all the flesh
from the bones, and separating the lean from the fat ;
the fat is fried in earthen vessels to yield a lard ; the
lean is baked in the oven. The latter is then put into
calabashes, and the fat poured over it ; by this mesas
the meat will keep sound for upwards of 12 months.

MR. SIBTHORP'S-CONVERSION.

" The Limerick Reporter announces the conversion to the
Catholic faith of the Rev. Mr. Sibthorp. What will his
brother, the ultra-Tory Member for Lincoln, say to this?
His very whiskers, we suspect, will bristle up like a cat's back
with horror."—London Sun of Saturday.
No such thing. We should not be surprised were the
gallant thunderer against Maynooth to follow the ex-
ample so well set by his reverend brother. The
honester the zealot, the more chances there are in his '
favour of the triumph of truth. We have had extraor-
dinary instances, within the last few years, of the spread
of Catholicism among a portion of the English Aristo-
cracy the most violently opposed to its doctrines. What
reason is there to suppose that Colonel Sibthorp, with
ail his bigotry, may not soon be among the number ? For
our part we should not be surprised if he became before
long a thorough-going Catholic. He is a zealot, it is
true, and, we firmly believe, an honest one ; and the
greater likelihood, we repeat, that he may open his
eyes to error, and embrace the faith he now inveighs
against with the acrimony of the Grand Turk.—
Limerick Reporter.

SINGULAR DEATH OF A GREENWICH PEN-
SlONER—Yesterday morning, just before six o'clock, the
body of an old Greenwich pensioner, named John Phill-
potts,
aged 75, was discovered hanging from the bedpost
in a ward in the Infirmary : his throat was also cut, and
when found he was quite dead. It would appear that the
unfortunate man, who had been in a bad state of health
for some time, had suspended himself by the cord of the
bedstead, and afterwards, repenting of the act, had at-
tempted to cut that part of the rope which was round his
neck with a knife that was afterwards found near his
person, but had failed in doing so, and in the attempt
had so lacerated his throat that he died of th© wounds.