DESTITUTION OR NEGLECT? CANNIBALISM IN SAGHALIEN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2579, 9 November 1893, Page 4

DESTITUTION OR NEGLECT?

CANNIBALISM IN SAGHALIEN.

At the Ivaiapoi Magistrate's Court recently, before H. W. Bishop, Esq , and J. L. Wilson, Esq., J.P., a farmer j«wu,ed_Patrick O’Connell, well known in the Ncr.th Canterbury district, now residing near Oko-ha. was summoned M the instance of the poi izc. who are acting as truant officers, with neglecting to send six of his children, of school age, I . e ,r r ,fiu - l3 r to school. On the c'barge being read, tjm Resident Magistrate asxed lbo defendant pleaded. Defendant: Oh, I admit it. The Resident Magistrate : Then as you must, 1 suppose, know the law, yon are required to send your children regularly or give proof that they are being privately instructed. How is it they are not going ! Defendant: They ain’t fit to go ; they havo not any clothes to go in. The Resident Magistrate ; How many children have you !■ Defendant ; Wo havo had nineteen, and there’s fourteen with us uow. 1

have been unfortunately victimised by ' some of our law-makers. I was able to send them to school one time, but now I cannot. The Resident Magistrate : But you must send them to school. Have you tried to do so 'I Defendant: Your Worships, they would have to go naked. The Resident Magistrate : You cannot be quite so destitute as that. Are all the family now at home ? Defendant: There is fourteen and myself and the old woman. The Resident Magistrate : Well, you seem to bo clothed decently. Defendant; This is a suit I had before the lawyers took nearly everything from me. Constable Donovan, who served the summons, said he saw the defendant’s children. They were nearly naked, and had no boots. One boy’s trousers were torn up to his thigh. He should say the children were so dirty that no school would take them in. Their residence was about a mile and a-half from the school. So far as he could gather they had received no schooling. The Resident Magistrate: This is a shocking state of affairs, and one should have some sympathy with the unfortunate little ones. Constable Cartmill gave similar evidence. The children, were miserably clad and in an almost wild state. They had no boots and their clothes were in shreds. In reply to the Bench, the constable said he believed the defendant was driven at times to drink through his misfortunes. Defendant here said the Government had one way and another got a good deal out of him without wanting his children to go to school to buy books, and many men were as well off who had never gone to school at all. Too much schooling, he considered, was as bad as none at all. The Resident Magistrate, in his experience, had seen children going to school without boots. There was no harm in that, and if they were well cleaned and put into cheap dresses, made of even old flour bags, and sent to school it would be better than letting them grow up in ignorance. The Bench had no other course than to make an order that the children must attend school, but it would make such order without costs, and it would be for the committee to accept them. If there was any further difficulty about the matter the Court might have to deal with the case in another way.

The defendant ; I understand what you say, but if they summon again they might as well bring the old woman and she’ll explain the matter about lire clothes and things. Mr Bishop said that the Bench thought if the facts were known the defendant’s neighbors would assist to fit out the children in a presentable condi ion.

The latest number of the “Vladivostock,” a paper published in Eastern Siberia, reveals a terrible state of affairs among the convicts on the island of SaghaJien. It would appear that the convicts there have been treated by some of the subordinate prison authorities so harshly that the Governor of the island has been obliged to interfere for their protection. A warder named Khan off and some of his assistants, who at one time were convicts themselves and had been raised to the rank of gaolers, have been removed from their posts for illtreatment. Khauoff’s treatment of his prisoners was so aboniimblo that a number of them crippled themselves of set purpose, cutting off fingers and toes in order to be treated as invalids, and to be freed from his terrible cruelties. Others fled to the impenetrable forests, where they suffered all the horrors of hunger. In a satchel belonging to a fugitive convict, who has been hunted down, was foqnd some pieces of human flesh. Investigation revealed that this man had been one of a party of four, and that only one of thorn now remained, The others had been killed and devoured by their comrades. Similar cases of cannibalism are, according to the Siberian journal, not infrequent.