Tus old saying that "murder will out" seems at last in a fair way of being verified, in the case of the lorcha Mandarin; though the process have been never so tardy. It is now rather more than four years since the ramour was first heard that the Chinese crew had murdered the captain by tying him in a sack and pitching him overboard, and had pirated the vessel and cargo. It will be remembered that the Mandarin had cleared from Chinkeang for Shanghai, and had come down the Yangtsze in company with several vessels. But on nearing Woosung she was seen to haul out of her course, and set sail as if bound out to sea. Nothing more was heard of ber for several days, till a vessel from Ningpo reported having passed her steering South; and about the same time the report of foul play to which we have alluded, became current. At the request of H.B.M.'s Consul, the Taotai agreed to take steps to investigate the affair, and the Chinese gunboat Weirhing was despatched with orders to cruise about the islands and bays on the const of Chekeang and Fohkien, and if possible bring back the lorcha and crew to Shanghai for trial. Two British Consular officers, Messrs. Brennan and Spence, accompanied the expedition, which succeeded in the tracing the vessel as far as Soongmen on the coast of Chekeang, where it was ascertained that she had pat in for a fow days and sold part of her cargo, but had left again for the South six days before the arrival of the searching expedition, The search was prosecuted as far as Namquan on the const of Fohkien, when the Captain of the gan. boat discovered that he bad only fifty tons of coal left, and insisted on returning to Shanghai. Here, for some inscrutable reason, the matter was allowed to drop, just as a good clue had been found, and nothing but a little energetic research seemed needed to trace out and punish the crime.
Tt was not till three years after these events, that evidence of the Mandarin having been soon at different timesonthe coast was again placed before H.B.M.'s Minister, in-a sufficiently definite form to induce him to order a renewed search, and H.M.S. Thalia undertook to carry out that purpose, having on board Mr. R. J. Forrest, then acting Consul at Ningpo, and Mr. J. Main, brother of the murdered owner of the lorcha. This cruise resulted in the apprehension, at Soongmen, of four or five people, of whom some were proved to have been concerned in the sale of a considerable portion of the cargo of the missing vessel; but the Mandarin herself remained at large. The mon were taken to Ningpo, clearly inculpated, and handed over for some reason to the Fohkien authorities, in whose hands they are believed still to remain.—Again the spasmodic energy of the British Legation was exhausted, and the matter was allowed to drop till, a few weeks a foreign pilot thought he detected the lorcha, in Chinese disguise, at the newly opened port: of Wenchow. He reported his conviction to the Acting Consul, Mr. Warren, at whose request the Taotai seized the vessel till farther enquiry could be instituted. Mr, Main was requested to come down; and the result of his examination has perfectly convinced him that the suspected vessel is the veritable Mandarin. Great pains have been taken to disguise her, but men who have been familiar with a ship are not easily deceived. A pilot and a Custom House officer now stationed at Wenchow recognised some chequered work in the cabin floor and fittings. They know it well, having been often on board with the Into Captain; and Mr. Main himself identified the foreign work of the bull and the old canvas sail which, although much worn, is still the original one. The absence of any trastworthy papers, and the inability of the present owner to give any plausible account of how she came into his possession, afford strong corroborative evidence of the identity of the vessel; and we may hope that the tragedy will be at last fally disclosed and punished. It is little to the credit of the Chinese authorities that they should have allowed a vessel after which this hue and ery was raised, to trade for four years on the very portion of the coast where her presence had been so often accused, and where they bad been again and again requested to search her out. We do not mean to say that the Taotai of Wenchow, for instance, knew personally that she was in the habit of frequenting his port; bat the native Customs officials, there and elsewhere, must have known quite well that the craft was a suspicious one, and the slightest goodwill would have secured her detection and capture. The Government is responsible for the bad faith of its subordinates.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.