WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 13, 15 July 1905, Page 9

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

SPhe estimated population of Western Australia, on the 30th June was 251,128, an increase of 1388 for the month, and an increase of 13,125 for the year. Tho State Premier proposes to spend £10,000 before the end of the year on additions to the various agricultural colleges. The case against Tommy, an aboriginal, charged with the murder of, Henry Edwards at Spring Creek, Victoria River, on the 11th January, was concluded on the sth inst. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, prisoner being sentenced to death. , The prisoner, in the box, told his story in a most intelligent and impressive manner, steadily adhering to the main features, in the faco of a severe cro&s-examination. He alleged that he had been ill-treated by Edwards and Frost on various occasions, and stated that on the date of the murder Edwards struck him twice, and Frost threatened to shoot him. Prisoner admitted shooting Frost. He afterwards caught and saddled a horse, and took a rifle and seven cartridges, touching nothing else. Ho made his way back to settled districts. Judge Herbert, in summing up, dwelt severely on the alleged ill-treat-ment of prisoner, stigmatising such usage of a native ns dnstardly, but contending that the cold-blooded way in which ?he prisoner shot Edwards and others showed that his crime was deliberate and premeditated.