A BUSHMAN’S STORY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 385, 14 June 1866, Page 1

A BUSHMAN’S STORY.

{From tlie S. A. Eeglster.) The cruellest murder of a native, and the most complete vindication of the law that ever came under my notice took place about twenty years ago. I was living on a sheepstation near one of the bays in the SouthEast District of South Australia, and not far from the boundaries of the colony. It was a wild country. The settlers were few and far between. Many of the men employed by them were old convicts, who bad found their way over the Gleuelg into the ei saint-like air” of South Australia, as Mr Kingloy calls it; and in addition to all this, Adelaide was more than three hundred miles dis'un;, so that if reckless treatment of the natives could anywhere escape punishment it Would be in this out-of-the-way part of the world. Dut such escape was not easy even in those days of incomplete protection and defective police organisation, as my plain narrative will show. It was a sultry afternoon in the early part' of summer. A heavy brooding stillness pe-

culiar to Australia ia close weather covered the country. Scarcely a breath of air moved the thick dark trees in tho bush ; and as I walked down to the sea-shore, tiie water, which was far out, was as calm as a lake ; whilst the only life that stirred upon the ’not sand was the sliding movement of a huge black snake, which was creeping down to cool itself in the sea. Towards evening I turned homeward, aud was approaching a swamp slot far from the station when I heard the report of a pistol, and soon afterwards the cry of a native, “ White man, came 1 white man, come!” I ran up a rise o; ground which overlooked the station on the one side and the miamis of an aboriginal

encampment ou the other, ami turning ia the latter direction I saw a native crawling in apparent pain from one of the miauiis to the swamp, where he evidently wanted to drink. On running to Lis assistance I saw that lie was bleeding profusely from a pistol wound in the side ; but he could only indicate by his gestures that he had been shot, by some one near tho wurieys. Soon afterwards he died.

This native, now so cruelly killed, had long been a favorite about the station under the name of sometimes Kingberri, and sometimes Billy, whilst he would also acknowledge the cognomen of Johnny ; for if you were to ask an aboriginal what his godfathers and godmothers had dene for him he might reply that they had never tired of heaping new distinctions upon him. Here, then, was poor Kingberri, a “fellow of inflaiie jesr,” and a willing jack-cf-all-works to boot, now lying ruthlessly shot. V’.’jio hud perpetrated this barbarous crime ?—-for such every settler would consider it, although we were- Glenelg

sheep-farmers, and were hundreds of miles from the Courts of Justice. My first step was to call the meu from the station. Of these two or three carried the warm body of poor Kingberri to the huts, and I started off with another in the direction of the wurleys. Here we met the deceased’s two lubras, who bad become aware of the murder, but who knew nothing of the perpetrator. Kingberri had lived with them apart from other natives; they had seen him about the place not long before they heard the report of the pistol; ami beyond this they knew nothing, though with a torrent of words, in which Emily vied with Emma in contradicting each other with such expressions as “ You big one fool” and “ You no good,” they gave us further to understand that “ whitefeilow him call Port Phillip Bill” was in the neighbuihood of the wurleys on the previous day “ picauiuny gun” (a pistol). Upon this man, who was a discharged shepherd, named Donnell, our suspicions at once fell, for he was known to have caused much offence to Kingberri by bis conduct in reference to the youngest iubra, Emily, who bad the misfortune to be much let it r looking than the generality of Australian black women. I don’t knew,- in fact, whether she wouldn’t have passed* for a beauty amongst the most attractive of Captain Speke’s African Hebes. Her sparkling eyes, her white teeth, and her merry laugh made her the hello of surrounding vurleys. Port Phillip Bill, then, was at once credited with the crflel murder, and-

every man on the station swore that he should not escape. Sis of us started off ia the direction of the Glenelg, and after two days’ careful esarnination of that line of country we were fortunate enough to had the rascal skulking in a hut, accompanied by a black boy called Jucky. Belli were duly banded over to the police, the prisoner neither admitting nor denying the crime, but niev.-Iy remarking, “ Oh, I shall say nothing. I know what I am about; they can’t hurt mo.” So he thought, and little did lie the:;

suppose that the outraged law would demand bis lif-? for the shooting of that harmless bfackfeiiow in the lonely bash. Who had sec-ii him do id? Where was the evidence ? and who was going to take the trouble to inquire into tho matter? We shall see when we g--t to Adelaide,' and in the meantime little Jacky is a material witness, and the pistol us well as the bullet found on the prisoner are damning proofs of Lis guile. it is true there had been no “ Crowuer’s quest.” Poor Kingberri lay sleeping ia his grave beneath the dark suea-oak trees; and the cheerful Emily was by this time the light ot some other blackieliow’c wmley. But the law was in motion, and the South Australian Protector of Aborigines—(lot Mr Kingsley note that) —was sent all the way horn Adoiaiue —a serious journey in Hose days —for the purpose of disinterring the remains of tho murdered native, and forinaliy ascertaining the cause of death, lids is done, and in the dead body a bullet is found —the bullet which slew poor Kingbend, and which shall now recoil and slay the murderer. But how satisfy the majesty of the law? Wntil is the name of the deceased ? How is he to Le described ? Will not Ids very existence at the time of the ti’agsdv be questioned ? Yes; but the

H'iiy-uv Do quest amt u galiaws was not to bo robbed *u its duo and therefore twelve juryutoa hTSfTSiJpreme Court of South Australia found the fallowing verdict after having heard the whose of the evidence and the defence aiade by the prisoners coiiiisoi:—-

‘"Guilty of the murder of a certain man, being usi aboriginal native of Australia, whose name is to the jurors unknown to this present timer’ i look upon that trial, considering all the circumstances of the case —the distant scene of the usui her, and the numerous opportunities for escaping punishment—as a complete answer to the false charge that this colony in its early days was indifferent to toe treatment of the aborigines, especially the aborigines on the south-east border of the province. No expense, no trouble, end no precaution was spared in bringing to justice the assassin of this poor native, aUhaugh the deed was perpetrated in the lues! v« mote corner of the colony. The avenging arm of me law struck with unerring aim, and the murderer died admitting that he committed the crime, but denying that it was premeditated.

The evidence which chiefly led the jury to ttieir verdict was tho production of the bullet, which resembled those found on the prisoner, and which fined his pistol, as ais-« tiie statements of Jacky. The examination of t his witness was a novelty. lie informed the Court, after he had explained himself as to the value of “ truta” and “lies,” that he was with the prisoner when he went to Billy’s wnvley with “ picaninny gnuthat *' he shoot hlackfellow that “ blackfeliow sit down hurt very much,” and that he was “ so bad he run into the bush,” in illustration of which evidence Jacky left the witness'-box and ran across the Court in a crawling attitude, to show how the wounded blackfeliow went towards the swamp after he bad been shot. So putting ail the evidence together the result was mat the prisoner was convicted and afterwards hung at Thebafton Gaol, where, as the newspaper reports say, “ lie seemed to have slept soundly on the night previous to his execution, for it was necessary to awaken him at 6 o’clock in the morning to partake of bis last meal,”

Such, then, was the punishment inflicted by the laws of South Australia on the murderer of a native in the Gieuelg district, at the veiy time, too, when, according to Mr. Kingsley, it was “social ostracism for a prelector of aborigines ia this colony to dare to stand between the squatters and the

blackfsllows, and when “ ifc was easier to had water in the desert than to find mercy for the savages.” So much for English fiction, and Australian fact.