THE MOUNT RENNIE OUTRAGE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1296, 31 December 1886, Page 3

THE MOUNT RENNIE OUTRAGE.

In pronouncing sentence on the nine prisoners found guilty of the outrage on the girl Mary Jane Hicks at Mount Rennie, Sydney, on the 26th ult., Mr Justice Windyer spoke with intense feeling. He said that the prisoners had been convicted of a crime so horrible that every lover of Ms country must feel that it was a disgrace to our civilisation. It was horrible to think that there should he in this city a class worse than savages lower in their instincts than the brutes oelow us. Nothing could convey or fully express the abhorrence of right thinking men of a scene such as that descsibed by the witnesses A poor defenceless girl, defenceless and alone, like some wild animal was hunted down by a set of savages, who sprang upon her and outraged her until she lay a helpless thing before them Then when returning consciousness brought with it the terror of further outrages, she .in. her frepzy sought any such mode of death which seemed to present it'clf as a refuge from the horrors of her life He warned the prisoners to prepare for death. No hope of mercy could be extended to them, and they might ho sure that no weakness of the executive no maudlin feeling ot pity, would save them from the death they so rich’.y deserved. Those who were charged with the administration of cur affairs and to whose care was confided the safety of the public, would remember that there were things more precious than lifa itself—the honour of our women and the safetyjof our families—compared with which the wretched lives of criminals such as the prisoners could leof no account. After detailing a list of crimes of a similar nature which had taken place in the past, he said he fully believed the present culminating horror was the outcome of these, and he thought those charged with the execution of the law would not hesitate but would hand them over to the death which they most righteously deserved. Outrages such as (hat of which the prisoners had been found guilty, wore not committed upon the children of the rich who wentahout under the protection of servants, bub upon the daughters of the people who in pursuit of their houest avocations were compelled to go about exposed to such outrages as hud been committed in the present case. The prisoners might rest assured that no pity would be extended to them, bnt would bo reserved for the homes outraged and the victims ruined by such crimes as theirs Sentence of death was then passed upon the prisoners, who were scarcely moved, to outward appearance when the verdict wasannounced. They' remained passive throughout the judges address, and the only sign of intense emotion was given by Miller, who threw himself on the floor as if in a fit, but speedily recovered.