AFRICAN NATIVES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 7

AFRICAN NATIVES.

THE BULAWAYO REPRIEVE. SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. SEXUAL CEIMES NOT INFREQUENT. By Telegraph.— Press Asioclation.— Copyright (Received January 28, 9 a.m.) " LONDON, 27th January. The sister of General Botha (Premier of the South African Parliament), who is now in London, states that South African women, in view of the reprieve of the Bulawayan native found guilty of assault, will tremble for fear of the consequences. Such crimes, Miss Botha declares, are more common than the English public are aware ot. AN ERA OF CLEMENCY. MORE MURDERERS PARDONED. RELEASE OF REBEL CHIEFS. (Received January 28, 10.30 a.m.) CAPETOWN, 27th January. Viscount Gladstone, Governor-General ■ of South Africa, has reprieved four Rhodesian, natives who were condemned to death for murder— three of them for tha tribal custom of killing twins. Tilonko and other Zulu chiefs, who were imprisoned at St. Helena for participation in the 1906 rebellion, have been releaaed. UNWISE INTERFERENCE. L VIEWS OF AN EX-POLICE OFFICER. LORD GLADSTONE'S ACTION CONDEMNED. [by txlegbakei— special to the post.] AUCKLAND, This Day. An Auckland resident, who a few years ago held a position in connection with the South African police, made 6ome interesting remarks to a Star representative yesterday regarding the cables from Capetown upon the stibject. of the Governor-General's attitude in relation to the death penalty for certain offences. "I can quite imagine that the people of South Africa will most bitterly resent Lord Gladstone's action, as well as his tactless remarks in regard to the case which has formed the subject matter of recent cables," said the ex-officer referred to. "In the first place, it has to be understood that there is not one law for the black man and another for the white all through South Africa. What is known as tho Roman Dutch •law obtains, and sexual offences are almost invariably punished by the death penalty. Only under the most palliating circumstances is there any mercy shown. My experience as a police officer includes extensive knowledge of tho Transvaal, the Cape, and Natal, and I Was associated with the police force in each of these places. "All through South Africa the offences to which I have referred are of very common occurrence, and I have known many cases in which white men, as- well^ as blacks, have been hanged for conviction on charges of rape. Unsound mind is about the only plea for mitigation that carries any weight, and I remember on& case of a Kaffir who had committed a sexual offence being mobbed. He was so roughly treated before t/he t police could interfere that his injuries actually drove him mad. The case against this man woa proved, but he was sent to an asylum as a criminal lunatic. "For tho Governor-General to talk about it being time that Rhodesian women learned to lock their doors and windows at nights is moat extraordinary, emanating from one with so short an experience of the country as Lorduladstone has. Even in New Zealand the climate is so warm that, to live in a locked-up house would be an impossibility. In South Africa such a thing is absolutely out of the question. In any case, it is doubtful if the number of sexual offences would be greatly diminished should it be possible to follow such advice. I was, while in Natal, occupied on a case where a railway official's wife, very often left alone in a reniote part of the country near L,ady.smith, took the precaution of locking windows and doors when, her husband was away. One night she heard some one trying to open a door, and getting no satisfactory answer to her enquiry as to who was there, took a chance shot with a revolver, and killed a native. She had to stand her trial for manslaughter, but it was only a matter of form, as it was known that no jury in South Africa would convict her. It cannot be said that racial feeling runs very high in South Africa, but it certainly is a f,iot that all through the Federated States the tear of sexual offences is such that the people will have "o interference with the existing law, and if the new Governor-General persists in interfering there is no doubt that the people will' take the law into their own hands."