ATROCIOUS OUTRAGE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1024, 31 October 1882, Page 3

ATROCIOUS OUTRAGE.

The West African Mail brings the particulars of one of tl.e most horrible cases of brutality of whioh we ever remember to have heaid. It appears that at a place called Onitsha, near Sierra Leone, a British subject named Fortunatus John had in his service two young girls. For some reason or other they ran away, were caught and then punished. This is how the punishment was inflicted by, or at the instigation of Fortunatus John and John Williams. The girls were tied back to back, and then flogged with brandies of pine tree, and afterward? with cane rope. ' They flogged us strong,' says the purvivor in her evidence. ' Our flesh was cut in many parts of our bodies, and blood came out.' Then came the second and most terrible part of the putishment. ' They rubbed pepper upon us. Male prisoner John ordered the pepper co be brought, male prisoner Williams mixed pepper with oil, and rubbed it in my eyes. It was ground pepper. Male prisoner John ordered lmajuro to rub pepper all over our skib. Pepper was rubbed all over my skin. I don't remember now how many times pepper was put on us that day. When the pepper was rubbed on us we rolled our bodies on the ground." In the intervals of punishment the girls were left bound and under a baking African sun. One died ; the other survived to give evidence against these fiends in human form who had so tortured them. These brutes were about, when the mail left, to be tried for manslaughter at Sierra Leone by a special Commission composed of the leading officials of the colony. It is reported that the accused : men were missionaries of the Church | Missionary Society. A telegram to the \ Christchurch Telegraph, under date London, October 25, gives tho sequel : the two missionaries, Fortunatus John, and John Williams, and the wife of the the former, were triad by special commission at Sierra Leone for the manslaughter of a girl who was in their service, whom they flogged almost to death, and leaving her and her companion similarly treated, exposed to the sun until one girl died, have been sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, and the wife of John Williams has also been sentenced to a short term as an accessory.