A CAPTAIN CHARGED WITH MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 304, 22 December 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

A CAPTAIN CHARGED WITH MURDER.

A SENSATIONAL STORY. DISOBEDIENCE OF A COLOURED CHEW. THE ACCUSED ACQUITTED. The trial of Alfred Boulter, master of the British schooner Kalunderbux, on a charge of having murdered one of his crew, a Serang, *or the coloured boatswain, in Lowbok Straits, on 29th August last, was concluded in the Criminal Court, Perth, before the Chief Justice, recently. The tale told by the captain was of a sensational character. He said that during the voyage from Sourabaya his coloured crew, with the Serang leading them on, refused to obey his orders, and on one occasion they planned to leave" the schooner and swim Lo aji island. This was prevented by threatening them with a revolver. He said he would shoot the first man who went over the side. Later on during a severe storm the sails were blown away through the crew refusing to carry* orders out, and the vessel was running on to a reef. Accused endeavoured to save the vessel, but the man at the wheel would not steer the course given him, and the Serang deliberately humbugged with the foresails. Accused went to the Sevang and remonstrated with him. and the Serang rushed at him with a knife, and threatened to kill him. Accused, io save himself, fired to hit the Serang in the Ihigh, but the vessel lurched at the time, and the bullet went through the abdomen, with fatal results. For nine, days and nights after that accused coulrl get no sleep, as he was afraid the crew would kill him. On one occasion two Malays oi!----deflvourerl to seize him. and in the struggle to defeat them he received fi stab in the left leg. He ironed his assailants, and kept others under subjection at the point of the revolver. He arrived at Broomp shattered in health, and with the schooner in a dismantled and dilapidated condition. The jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide, and the accused was discharged.