TRIBAL JUSTICE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2665, 3 September 1937, Page 3

TRIBAL JUSTICE

AN ABORIGINAL “BAD MAN” POLICE SAVED FROM A TASK. Northern Territory police have been saved the trouble of searching further for Smiler, a noted “bad man” aboriginal, who' had been responsible for the death of at least five aborigines in the last five years. Black justice has moved faster than the white man’s, and Smiler’s body, riddled with spears, has been found near the Liverpool River. Smiler, a strong, cunning and brutal fighter, had been the bogey-man of tribes throughout the far north. His bad deeds had made him an outcast, and he hunted like a lone wolf. Dreadful tales were told of his savage ways, and native women and children lived in constant terror of his wrath. Last September he came out of the Arnhem Land reserve, and accompanied by another aboriginal named Jackie, secured temporary employment on a peanut farm at Katherine. Smiler and Jackie fell in love with the same lubra. She rebuffed Smiler, so he killed Jackie. The killer fled into the Minoru district; Constable Hall tracked him to the border of Arnhem Land Reserve, only to be forced back by the break of the wet season. The police chase was resumed immediately the rains finished this year. It continued relentlessly until last week, when Constable Hall discovered that Smiler had already paid the supreme penalty for his crimes.