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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1066, 27 April 1882, Page 2

A recent telegram from Sydney slated that nine of the seaman of 11.M.5. Cormorant had been placed under arrest for assaulting one of the South Sea Islanders concerned in the Isabelle murders. This was afterwards contradicted, and true details are now to hand. The Telegraph says :—Two Natives who were concerned in the massacre of the Isabelle’s crew were handed over to the Cormorant at the island of Espiritu Santo for punishment. They were immediately placed in irons, in order that they might be brought on to Sydney for trial. All went well until just before Cormorant’s arrival in Noumea, when one of these savages, a very powerful chief, was freed from his bonds, and allowed to walk about the deck. At the same time the entire attention of the seaman and officers was directed to a burning mountain which the vessel was passing. While their attention was so engaged the Native, who evidently thought he was going to be killed, slipped behind the men, seized a handspike, and was about to assail a seaman who was lying down. Fortunately, another seaman happened to look round, and, seeing what the savage was about to do, rushed at him and struck him on the head with a gun-pike, killing him on the spot. The other Native was kept in close confinement during the voyage, and he is now on board IT.M.S. Nelson awaiting his trial. No seamen are under arrest for the affair.”

A loathsome case of inhumanity on the part of a husband towards his wife and children is reported by the Stirling correspondent of the South Australian Reg inter : —A family named Wilkins, it was stated, wits living in a frightful state of destitution in a hut not far from the police station. P. T. Donogan obtained a search warrant, and a most painful state of affairs was revealed. It was found that no furniture was in the house, not even a bed, simply a little straw in sacks on the earthen floor, and some other sacks and pieces of blankets to cover the persons of the husband, wife, and sick children. When these coverlets were removed it was discovered that they were filled with maggots and filth, and that neither wife nor children had any underclothing, but simply an outer covering scarcely sufficient to hide their nudity. The father, James Wilkins, was brought before the local magistrates. The police constable stated that he found no less than £7O upon the husband, and that he also possessed three horses, and carried on the trade of a wood-carter. The justices considered the case so flagrant that they remanded it to the Adelaide police court, where, on the Bth March, Wilkins appeared before Mr Beddome, charged with neglecting to supply his wife and six children with sufficient food and clothing. He was committed to take his trial at the Supreme Court, the evidence clearly showing that, had it not been for the neighbours, the children must have starved. In the mother’s arms was a sickly child about nine months old, evidently suffering from want of proper nourishment. The child, Emma Wilkins, died on the 16th Marell. At the coronial inquiry a Mrs Marslin stated that she was called upon about nine months ago to attend Mrs Wilkins in her confinement, and when she arrived at the hut she found the woman helping her husband with a young horse, the poor creature at the time being wet up to the hips. She was shortly after confined. It was also stated that the child had been left upon the cold ground floor, inside a horse■collar; by the hour together, whilst the mother |

went to help her husband to load his wood. The wife, when interrogated as to why she had not complained before, said that her husband had threatened to poleaxe her if she did anything of the kind. As showing the emaciated state of the child it was stated at teh inquest that though nine months old it only weighed Gjlbs.