By Roselyn Cloake
This is a blog about burial, belief, and how we remember those who died by their own hand, and how a history hunting holiday to Dunedin recently sent me down an unexpected series of side quests. It was two nights, with my friend visiting from the states. There was a lot to cram in. I have been learning about South Canterbury's past and decided I needed to look further out from South Canterbury to better understand our shared past.
We went on a few history tours together and as we learned about the lives of various historical figures, we noticed a pattern emerge. Quite a few of the people we were learning about had ended their own lives. I will elaborate on who in a few other blogs, but for now while it still a difficult subject to approach, I wanted to understand not so much what happened, but how society understood it at the time, and how that impacted our laws and culture. How you died could determine how you were buried, how families were treated, and how reputations were formed or fractured long after death.
I already knew that suicide was once referred to as “committing suicide”. This is a term I consciously avoid for more recent deaths. The word committing is rooted in criminal law. Until the early 1960s, taking your own life was illegal. What I did not fully appreciate until this history hunt was how deeply that legal framing reached into people’s lives, and deaths. This is today's blog on suicide, crime, and property...
While I have made efforts to be careful, as this is a tricky subject to approach, if you, yourself are struggling, remember there are many public support avenues to reach out to for help. In NZ you can call or text 1737 any time (free) to talk with a trained counsellor, and 111 if there’s immediate danger.
English common law shaped New Zealand’s early legal system. Suicide was treated as a felony known as felo de se, literally “a felon of oneself”.
If a person was found to have deliberately ended their own life while of sound mind, the consequences did not just end with death. Because the deceased could not be punished physically for their crime, punishment took another form, and their property and assets could be forfeited to the Crown.
But if the person was found to be mentally unwell, described in historical language as non compos mentis or of unsound mind, the death was not treated as a felony. In that case, property could pass to next of kin in the usual way.
This distinction appears repeatedly in 1800s coronial inquests. At first glance, I read this wording as compassion, but now with hindsight, I realise this was noted for more practical reason. Those deliberately chosen phrases determined whether a grieving family lost everything, and the language of insanity could often provide them a shield.
How did law shape behaviour?
How did belief shape law?
How did consequences fall unevenly?
How did records encode power and mercy?
How does memory get constructed?
I needed to think a bit deeper to work out why suicide was viewed as a crime.
I have grown up believing that I owned my life. But for a subject of a King or Queen back in the day, my life was not mine. For much of British legal history, authority over life sat first with God, as taught by Christian doctrine, and then with the Crown, which inherited that authority in law. Subjects of the royals were expected to live in service to family, church, and state, and life itself was treated as something held in trust rather than owned outright.
So ending one’s own life was seen as a breach of duty, a withdrawal of a body and its labour from the social order rather than what we might think of today as a private act of despair. Suicide was framed as theft, and because the dead could not be punished, consequences fell on property, burial, and family reputation.
This way of thinking can be traced back to the early centuries of Christianity, particularly to the writings of theologians such as Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries, who argued that life was created by God and therefore only God had the authority to end it. That belief was later reinforced and systematised in the medieval period by thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, and then absorbed into English common law by the thirteenth century. From that point on, the idea that a person did not own their own life became embedded not just in religious teaching, but in legal practice, burial customs, and everyday social expectations. By the time Britain’s colonial laws were carried to places like New Zealand, this way of thinking had already shaped centuries of law and culture, even as people quietly struggled with its consequences.
Going back further, in ancient Greece and Rome, suicide was argued over as a moral and philosophical problem, and from what I can make out, it doesn't seem to have been treated as a crime against the state. Some thinkers accepted it in situations of unbearable suffering or loss of dignity, others worried about its impact on the wider community.
In ancient Egypt, from what I could make out from some Googling, life and death were understood through ideas of balance and the afterlife, with judgement shaped more by spiritual consequence into the after life, than legal punishment. It was interesting to learn that in these earlier worlds, life was deeply meaningful and relational, but it was not yet treated as property claimed by a ruler. That idea would come much later, alongside Christian theology and medieval law.
There were well known thinkers in the ancient world who openly debated this. This section is a bit of a side quest but I think helpful for context of this conversation.
- In ancient Greece, Plato wrote that suicide could harm the community and disrupt social order, yet he still treated it as a moral problem rather than a crime enforced by the state.
- Aristotle was concerned that suicide wronged the polis, the civic community, but again framed it as a failure of duty rather than theft of life.
- In contrast, Stoic philosophers such as Seneca and Epictetus argued that a rational person could choose death in circumstances of unbearable suffering, loss of dignity, or when life no longer aligned with reason.
- Seneca wrote that “the wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can,” a strikingly different idea from later Christian thought.
- In ancient Egypt, texts such as The Dialogue of a Man with His Ba show that despair and the desire for death were acknowledged as human experiences, weighed against spiritual consequences rather than legal punishment.
I can see now, how these perspectives show that before Christianity, suicide was debated, troubled over, and morally examined, but it was not yet treated as a crime against God or the state.
It would be interesting to learn more about when the mindset and rules started to change. The shift mostly likely happened when Christianity became the dominant moral framework of the Roman world, and later of medieval Europe. Early Christian thinkers, particularly Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries, argued that life was created by God and therefore only God had the authority to end it.
Once these ideas were absorbed into medieval law, especially in England, they took on a political dimension and the Crown inherited God’s authority, and a subject’s life was treated as something owed to both God and state. Suicide shifted from being a philosophical or spiritual problem into a punishable offence, enforced through law, property, burial, and memory.
Looking quickly across other religious traditions I can see that many faiths discourage suicide, and few historically treated it as a crime punishable beyond death. I think this can highlight how specific the Christian–English legal response was, rather than ideas that were more universal across time and cultures.
So, who made the rules, and who was believed to have the right to decide the meaning of a human life?
The law made a statement about ownership, even when the person was no longer alive to hear it.
Burial was judgement. The consequences of suicide went beyond an inquest and reached into the ground.
For centuries, the Church treated suicide as a grave morals. A person who died by suicide while judged to be of sound mind could be denied Christian burial. Burial in consecrated ground was not just about place. It was about belonging. To be excluded was to be placed outside the Christian community.
Before 1823 in England and Wales, this could mean burial outside the churchyard altogether. In some cases, people were buried at crossroads, (literally two intersecting roads) sometimes with a stake driven through the body, without religious rites. I found this a brutal revelation, and I shudder to think how this hurt the diseased families and friends. While these practices varied by place and period, burial became a form of punishment. This was a moment where I realised the stigma that many of us might feel with the topic of suicide come from, we have had centuries of shame for the dead and the living. No wonder it is something we are careful to speak about.
For families, this must have been so devastating. Not only was grief so public, but being excluded from consecrated ground meant families could not be buried together. A person’s death could fracture family burial plots for generations.
The burial of people who died by suicide at crossroads began in medieval England, and was still legally practised until the Burial of Suicide Act of 1823. It ended with the decriminalisation of suicide in England in 1882.
Law softens, slowly and we did see change, but it came gradually.
In 1823, the Burial of Suicides Act allowed people who died by suicide to be buried in consecrated ground. Burials were still restricted though. They had to take place at night, and the normal Christian burial service could not be used. While the location changed, the stigma remained.
In 1870, the Forfeiture Act removed the automatic seizure of property following a felony verdict, including felo de se. This would have been a major turning point, where the financial punishment that had shaped inquest language for centuries was stripped away.
In 1882, the Interments (felo de se) Act removed the requirement for night burial and allowed burial in churchyards at any hour. The law was finally dismantling the public rituals of shame.
By this point, the system had already softened in practice. The law was catching up with what people were increasingly unwilling to enforce.
As I was visiting Dunedin, Otago, a Scottish settlement of the reformed church, I was curious about Scottish differences.
Otago was deliberately founded as a Free Church of Scotland colony in the 1840s, shaped by the Disruption of 1843, when ministers broke away from state control to assert the primacy of conscience and covenant over Crown authority. Led by figures such as Rev Thomas Burns (a nephew of the famous poet of the people Robert Burns), the Otago settlers brought with them a Presbyterian culture that valued moral seriousness, self discipline, education, and inward judgement rather than outward ritual.
Their worship from what I can make out seems plain in comparison with the English Anglicans, funerals were restrained, and moral accountability was understood as something carried quietly within the community rather than enacted through public spectacle. Suicide was still considered sinful, but Scottish culture expressed judgement through silence, memory, and reputation rather than dramatic legal or burial punishments. This meant less emphasis on ritualised exclusion and more reliance on social consequence, a cultural inheritance that continued to shape burial practices, inquest language, and remembrance in Otago and neighbouring South Canterbury long after settlement.
While on my history hunting this has become one of my most important realisations, that that English practice was not universal. And Scottish culture, which was shaped by Presbyterian Calvinism, had a different relationship with ritual. I think funerals may have been simpler, and that there could have been less emphasis on ceremony and more emphasis on conscience, morals, and inward judgement. But then when I reflect on my visit to the Larnach's grave in the Northern Cemetery of Dunedin, they seem to have bucked from this using a 14 meter high impressive tomb to immortalise the family, which I plan to dive deeper into, in another blog. In contrast, if you were to visit Timaru's famous photographer, William Ferrier's grave in Timaru, it will take some hunting because while does a marked grave, it is literally a tiny square plaque that you have to spy in the cut blades of grass.
Generally it seems Scotland placed less emphasis on forfeiture. Suicide was considered morally wrong, but it was not framed as a theft from the Crown in the same way. Families were less automatically exposed to financial ruin, and there was less pressure to use legal fictions to protect estates.
What does this mean to you?
Are these differences theological, cultural, or institutional?
How much is religion, and how much is class, geography, or power?
Where do we see overlap?
I think these differences of Otago vs Canterbury are interesting, particularly when learning about colonisation and migration, and it helps me better understand South Canterbury, who was between two worlds.
South Canterbury sits in a fascinating cultural position. It developed as a colony influenced by Anglican Canterbury to the north, and by the strongly Scottish settlement of Otago to the south. I grew up assuming the Canterbury cultural pull was stronger, but as I have been learning about civic gifting and legacy and I realised it was our local Scots who were in behind substantial gifts to the people of South Canterbury. Our Museum, Art Gallery, Library... all championed by the Scottish migrants.
There are of course other factors like gold rushes, location and proximity to resources and great growing land that influence South Canterbury's culture, but even looking at the difference in the cemeteries across these regions we can see how differently, generally we immortalise and remember people.
In South Canterbury, these influences met and the intersection shaped how deaths were recorded, how inquests were worded, how families were treated, and how people were buried. It shaped whether someone received a headstone, whether a burial was discreet or public, whether a family plot remained intact, and how a person’s reputation was remembered or erased.
When we read nineteenth century records today, we are often seeing the outcome of negotiation between law and culture, between English authority and Scottish restraint. I learned on a cemetery tour, that in politics people were consciously trying to infiltrate by nominating people who stood for particularly values. The Government were looking for Anglican leadership to represent Otago, and at times, the local Scots were saying over my dead body. We will not support that persons nomination and undermine the efforts made to establish this area as a planned Free Church of Scotland colony, intended to build a morally ordered, self governing Presbyterian society in the South Pacific.
So now I see a little more clearly, how all of this with the law, shaped memories and history, determining:
- whether a death was publicly named or obscured
- whether a family could grieve openly
- whether a person’s name appeared in a burial register, a newspaper, or not at all
- whether descendants inherited property, or silence
- whether you got the burial you wanted
If ‘unsound mind’ was protective, what did it cost us in terms of understanding despair honestly?
What I have learned so far, reinforces to me that words carry power. Legal language lingers, and terms shape how remember.
Now I realise that the repeated language of “unsound mind” was protective. It allowed families to remain whole, financially and socially, within a system that otherwise punished loss.
In New Zealand, suicide and attempted suicide were decriminalised with the Crimes Act 1961, which came into force in 1962. England and Wales followed the same year. Suicide is no longer a crime. We can say istead of committed, that they died by suicide.
It is important not to continue using that older language as it carries forward judgement that the law that our country has abandoned.
South Canterbury’s history was shaped by both Anglican and Scottish traditions, by English law and Scottish conscience. Those influences affected how people lived, how they died, and how they were remembered.
When we encounter deaths by suicide in our local records, we are seeing the imprint of law, church, culture, and fear. It is important to understand that context as it helps us read those records with greater care, greater empathy, and greater honesty.
And perhaps it reminds us that how we speak about death matters. Not just for the people of our past, but for the people who are living with loss today.
This history hunt shows that the way a society treats death reveals what it values most.
Thankfully we don't bury people under crossroads or outside town like the did back in England, and we no longer legally deny a dignified burials. This history hunt has taught me how systems shaped lives, language, and memory, and I feel a responsibility to approach difficult histories with empathy, accuracy, and respect for those whose voices were never fully recorded. Learning from our past has made me feel grateful that I don't live in an era with this same level of judgement, that law doesn't inforce a violation of divine command, and it reminds me how the laws our current government places, can shape our lives.
I grew up assuming my life was my own. This history hunt has shown me that, not so long ago, the law did not see it that way. A person’s life was treated as belonging to God and the Crown, and to end it was framed as theft, punished even after death through property loss, burial exclusion, and lasting stigma. Understanding that history is now reshaping how I read the past, and reminds me how carefully we should speak about death today.
In context with my history hunt into the Timaru cemetery, I now realise that the presence of huge monuments, small plaques, unmarked graves, careful wording in records, or silence does not necessarily reflect a lack of love, importance, or grief... and that it can reflect families navigating a legal system that once judged how a person died, and then extended that judgement into burial, inheritance, and memory.
Rules were not always kind. For a long time, vulnerability was dangerous.
I think today, we would mostly claim to value autonomy. But I think generally we also remain uncomfortable with allowing people full authority over their own lives. The old language of crime has faded, but the moral anxiety remains. Maybe this is why we struggle to share our struggles, we try to suck it up. That what we think could be a perception of how others percieve our own level of mental toughness, is closely linked to ideas that were not that long ago, illegal.
What are our inherited expectations about endurance and control?
Culturally, emotionally, and socially, that ownership is still fragile. When despair was once illegal, silence became survival. The disappearance of criminal law has not meant the disappearance of judgement. Instead, judgement has moved inward.
Though this history hunt, I have learned, while I may no longer be a part of criminalising despair, but in many ways, deep down, I have not fully decriminalised vulnerability within myself. Failure, weakness, is something I believe I need to manage privately. Maybe I could do better at allowing myself to reframe struggle it as deficiency or lack of toughness and be more honest. Maybe when people believe their distress reflects a personal deficiency they are less likely to tell friends or family, seek professional help early, and frame their experience as legitimate. A shift in thinking might replace self-surveillance with self-compassion, remove feelings of isolation. Humans were never meant to carry everything alone.
Support is not a moral issue. It is a biological and psychological one. Early support is one of the strongest protective factors against worsening mental health and suicide risk. Medication, therapy, and social support are not about taking control away from someone. They are about helping the brain return to a state where choices feel possible again.
If you, yourself are struggling, remember there are many public support avenues to reach out to for help. In NZ you can call or text 1737 any time (free) to talk with a trained counsellor, and 111 if there’s immediate danger.
A deeper look to better understand
Victorian coroners’ juries were often cautious about declaring suicide if there was any hint of mental unsoundness, because the consequences went far beyond the death itself. Burial, reputation, and a family’s financial future could all hinge on the wording of a verdict. With that in mind, I began looking through Papers Past to see how suicides were reported in New Zealand newspapers before 1900.
Victorian New Zealand inherited its legal and moral framework around suicide directly from Britain. Death by suicide was treated as a criminal act, and any suspected case required a formal coroner’s inquest. If a person was found to have taken their own life while of sound mind, the law deemed this felo de se. Property could be forfeited to the Crown, Christian burial might be denied, and families could carry lasting social stigma. If, however, the jury concluded the person was “of unsound mind”, the death was no longer treated as a crime. Assets could pass to family in the usual way, and blame was softened through the language of illness rather than sin or intent.
Because of this, coroners’ juries were often deeply careful. Where there was distress, illness, intoxication, youth, or confusion, juries sometimes leaned towards ambiguity or mental unsoundness, well aware of the impact their words would have. Verdicts were not just legal findings. They were social judgements, delivered by local men who often knew the deceased and their circumstances.
What emerges from the newspapers themselves is not sensationalism, but restraint. Reporting is factual and formal. Witness evidence is quoted at length, verdicts are recorded verbatim, and commentary is largely absent. Newspapers understood that these accounts would be read by families, neighbours, and communities, and that the language used mattered.
These examples demonstrate that suicide was reported primarily as a legal event, not an emotional one. Mental state mattered more than motive. Where intent was unclear, verdicts often favoured “unsound mind” or “temporary insanity”, quietly protecting families from harsher legal and social consequences. Where intent was unmistakable, through letters or clear preparation, the tone hardened slightly but remained procedural rather than judgemental.
Distance also shaped reporting. Local inquests were covered in detail, sometimes word for word. Deaths reported from elsewhere were often reduced to a few lines, placed among routine news and then moved past.
What I have learned from these reports is that newspapers were not trying to explain suicide. They were trying to contain it. Through careful language and formulaic verdicts, they recorded death while managing its impact on the living.
The inquest into the death of George Bowstead, reported in the Timaru Herald in February 1874, provides us an example of how suicide was investigated and recorded in nineteenth-century New Zealand.
Bowstead was a bush labourer working at the head of the Makikihi River and had been employed locally for nearly two years. After he was found dead from a gunshot wound, a coroner’s inquest was convened at the Makikihi Hotel, as required by law in any suspected case of suicide. Witnesses gave detailed accounts of his movements, behaviour, and state of mind in the days leading up to his death, and physical evidence was carefully described.
Central to the inquiry was the question of mental soundness. The coroner reminded the jury that their verdict must rest solely on the evidence before them. Despite testimony about heavy drinking, financial loss, and Bowstead’s expressed regret and intention to leave the district, the jury concluded that he had “shot himself, in a sound state of mind.”
That wording carried serious consequences. A finding of sound mind meant the death was legally treated as self-murder, with potential forfeiture of Bowstead’s property to the Crown and lasting implications for reputation and memory. This makes the verdict notable, as Victorian juries often leaned towards findings of mental unsoundness where possible, recognising the financial and social impact on families.
The Timaru Herald reported the inquest in a restrained, factual manner, recording evidence and verdict without commentary. This style reflects contemporary newspaper practice and an understanding that such reports were matters of public record rather than moral judgement.
Bowstead’s case shows that Victorian inquests were about more than establishing cause of death. They were legal and social acts, where a few carefully chosen words could shape the fate of families and the way a life was remembered.
Read more about the inquest here: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD18740213.2.20
A contrasting example appears in a newspaper report of the death of Christian Arras, a German farm labourer aged twenty five, who died near Kingsdown, outside Timaru.
Arras had been employed by a local farmer and had recently travelled to Timaru, ostensibly to attend the Timaru Show, before returning via Christchurch. He was last seen in good health. When his body was found near a hut, police investigation revealed a gun beside him and clear physical evidence that he had deliberately shot himself. Unlike many reports of the period, the newspaper went well beyond bare facts.
Significantly, Arras had left extensive written material. A handkerchief containing money, amounting to over £36 in notes, gold, and silver, was found on his bed. Additional writing in German was discovered in the hut, including what was identified as his will. When translated, it expressed remorse for his intended actions, hope that his parents would forgive him, and instructions that his money be sent to them. The report even notes his careful timing of the act, inferred from his watch being laid down so he could observe the hour.
Here, the newspaper adopts a markedly different approach. The act is described as “a most determined suicide,” and the reporting includes intimate personal detail, motive, preparation, and intent. There is no attempt to soften the language through uncertainty or mental unsoundness. Instead, Arras’s actions are framed as deliberate, reasoned, and planned.
This case highlights how written evidence left by the deceased could strongly influence both legal interpretation and newspaper narrative. Where a clear expression of intent existed, the ambiguity often seen in Victorian suicide reporting fell away. The law still required an inquest, but the moral framing shifted from uncertainty to tragic resolve.
Together with cases like George Bowstead’s, Arras’s death illustrates the narrow and uneasy space Victorian New Zealand occupied between law, compassion, and documentation. Suicide was treated as a crime, but how it was recorded depended greatly on the evidence left behind, and on how much room there was for doubt.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS18791101.2.16
A further example appears in the Timaru Herald’s Interprovincial column of October 1880, where suicide is reported alongside routine regional news.
In the Auckland section, the death of Mr Arran, a Fijian trader, is mentioned in just a few lines. He is described as being distressed over the imprisonment of another man and suffering from illness, before the report states plainly that he cut his throat. No verdict is given, and no further explanation is offered.
What stands out here is the brevity. The death is recorded without detail, emotion, or commentary, and sits among ordinary notices about shipping, farming, and court business. Unlike local inquest reports, there is no attempt to explore motive or state of mind.
This kind of short notice shows another side of nineteenth-century reporting. Where an inquest was distant or details were limited, suicide could be reduced to a factual line, acknowledged and then passed over. It reflects a newspaper culture shaped by restraint, and by an understanding that these were matters to be recorded, not examined at length.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD18801026.2.9
Suicide on the Eve of Trial: Timaru, 1882
J. M. Shepherd was a remand prisoner who had recently been returned to Timaru to face charges of forgery and uttering. He had been arrested in Auckland, brought south by detectives, and released on bail as the Supreme Court criminal session opened.
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the morning of 11 December 1882, a shot was heard in his uncle’s office, situated close to the Supreme Court buildings in Timaru. Shepherd was found on the floor with a revolver beside him and a gunshot wound to the head. Medical assistance arrived promptly, but he died at the scene. His body was removed to Stone’s Hotel, where an inquest was to be held.
The Evening Post report gives a clear explanation for the act. Shepherd had been advised that his defence was hopeless and that his only course was to plead guilty. No reference is made to his mental state, and there is no attempt to soften or interpret the event beyond this legal context. The suicide is presented as an outcome of circumstance and process, recorded plainly as part of the criminal proceedings unfolding that day.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP18821211.2.19
A later example appears in the New Zealand Herald’s “Suicides” column of May 1885, where multiple cases from around the country are reported together in short notices.
Several deaths are described, including those of labourers, a widow, and a young woman, with verdicts commonly returned as “suicide while in a state of temporary insanity.” Even where circumstances are clearly outlined, such as hanging or attempted self-harm, the language consistently frames the deceased as not being in their right mind. Illness, distress, or temporary instability is often mentioned, while moral judgement is absent.
Despite different ages, locations, and methods, the verdicts follow a familiar formula. The emphasis is not on intent or blame, but on classification. By recording these deaths under temporary insanity, the law was satisfied, and families were spared the harsher consequences attached to a finding of sound mind.
Set out as a column of brief notices, these reports show how suicide had become both routine and regulated in newspaper reporting. Each life is reduced to a few lines, but the careful choice of verdict language reveals an ongoing effort to balance legal obligation with social mercy.
New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7337, 25 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18850525.2.49
Another brief example comes from a report of the death of James Tegg, a youth aged about eighteen, employed at Hedges and Sons’ works near Milford.
Tegg was found hanging in a stable on the farm after failing to appear for work one morning. No reason was given for the act. The report notes that he was believed to be of weak intellect and records family circumstances, including the fact that two of his sisters had died in a lunatic asylum. These details are presented without commentary, but they clearly frame the death within ideas of inherited or personal mental weakness rather than moral failing.
The language is restrained and factual. Suicide is stated plainly, but responsibility is subtly shifted away from intent and towards mental condition. As in many similar reports, this framing allowed the death to be recorded while avoiding the harsher legal and social consequences associated with a finding of sound mind.
South Canterbury Times, Issue 6979, 31 October 1892, Page 3
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SCANT18921031.2.15
An Interprovincial report from December 1897 offers another glimpse into how suicide and mental unsoundness were treated as matters of law and public record.
In Auckland, an inquest was held into the death of Arthur Bach, an engineer who had been out on probation from Avondale Asylum. The jury returned a verdict of “suicide while of unsound mind.” A post-mortem examination showed prussic acid, though it was not known how he obtained it. The report records these facts plainly, with no discussion of motive or personal history beyond his prior confinement.
Placed among routine court news and civic notices, the case is handled briefly and without emphasis. Mental unsoundness is stated as fact, not explored or debated. As in many late nineteenth-century reports, the wording satisfies legal requirements while avoiding moral judgement, reinforcing how suicide had become a matter to be classified, recorded, and moved past rather than publicly examined.
INTERPROVINCIAL.
Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2566, 1 December 1897, Page 2
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD18971201.2.18