SHOOTING OF AUSTRALIAN OFFICERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1902, Page 2

SHOOTING OF AUSTRALIAN OFFICERS.

THE NEWS IN NEW ZEALAND. THE KILLING OF A BOER YOUTH. N\RR_TIVE OF _N EYE-WITNESS. DUNEDIN, This Day, The «' Clntha Leader " says editorially that it received a fnll report of the crimes charged against officers of the Bash Veldt Carbineers fonr months ago from an eye-wjfcness, bnt tho correspondent asked that the commuoication should be kept private till the conclusion of the war. The paper had felt ia honour bound to comply with the request. The eye-witness was one of those who laid the information against the {executed officers, ard he waa abo a principal witness at the trial. After saying that he and others refused fco shoot wounded Boera when ordered to do so, the writer proceeds :— " Then, seeing the feeling oE lhe men, one of the lieutenants Bang ou\ « If you'ce so chicken-hearted I'll shoot him myself." Pily for all of us he was not allowed to do it. A bad (Mad) (Botha, a Boer, fighting for us) was told off too. He told me, ' I know him good. I went; to school with him, I don't like to do it, but they will shoot me if I don't,' The wind up was that a firing party wa9 called. One shootist had belonged to the Essex Volunteers, and was always ready to blow any Boer's lights out. " I once thought of going away from the sickening signf, but instead I de- [ liberately walked over to the cart wherein the youth was standing, intending to muster up what Dutch courage I bad fco epeak to him. He took from h ; s pocket a jjieoe of paper and wrote a note. A slight "twitohing of the face was all the concern he di&p'ayed, Some KBsrs lifted him off a Cape cart in a blanket, and set him down some twenty yards away with his back to the firing party. He spoke no wqrd, bnt plasped bis hands, -and as the valley rang out he fell from fats sitting position baokwards, Then a lieutenant stepped over to him and put a revolver shot through his head, and all was over " Just prior to the shooting Lieut Moranfc addressed the firing party, but what he said I could not exactly catch, except sometlung about Captain Hnnt's deal* Morantalso came over to me and said, ' I know it's hard lines for him, but it's got to be done. See how the Boers knocked Captain Hunt about,' I said, ' Captain Hunt died a soldier's death, and was killed in a fair go, and beyond being stripped there wad no maltreatment of him, and the Kaffirs might have stripped him,'' Moranfc replied 'No,* that Captain Hunt's tunic and trousers had been found in the Cape cart. Bat I said, * The boy was not wearing them, anyhow ' He said, ' It's got to n_ done. It's unfortunate that he should be the first to suffer.' I still held it waa not right to shoot the prisoner alter carrying him so far, but as up to this tim© Wrant and - 1 had been good friends, 1 said no more,.but tore off my 'B.Y.C.' badges, aad oursed $uoh a form of soldiering. sf Then we saddled ap, and trekked for home," .