KILLING NO MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8360, 13 September 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

KILLING NO MURDER.

It is on occasions made painfully evident that in the remoter regions of Australia the value placed upon aboriginal lite is very small. The killing of a blaekfellow is accounted a venial sin, even if it be nob regarded as a righteous riddance of troublesome vermin. We may see an illustration of this sort of feeling in a case recently heard in the Northern Terriority, and in which most strenuous effort* are now being made in Adelaide to set aside the capital sentence. At tho recent session of the Palmorston Court, a man named Spencer was sentenced to death on a charge of tho murder of an aboriginal named Manialucum. Spencer had been engaged in buffalo hunting in the neighbourhood of Port Essington, and the deceased and other natives had been in his employ. After a time Manialucum ran away, and subsequently somo bags of rice were missing from tho camp, the theft of which was attributed to the missing bhekfellow. Months elapsed, but' the loss of the r ,c was not forgotten, and when a considerable time afterwards and in another locality Manialucum joined the camp again, Spencer scorns to have remembered his grievance against him. The black used to stay in the camp with the other aboriginals only at night, and run into the bush during the day time, as if ho feared ill-treatment. When Spencer learned that he had been there ho told the other blackfcllows to catch him, threatening if they did not that they would bo shot, tho whole lot of them. ' Accordingly, when Manialucum came into camp in the evening, and after smoking a pipe rose to depart, the others held him, and called out to Spencer. What happened then is told by one of the assisting aborigines -.— " Spencer was about 100 yards away when he called, and sang out,' Hold him, my boy.' He then ran up, caught hold of deceased by the hair of the head, put his revolver to his head and fired saying,' Good-bye, old man.' When he was shot deceased fell, and never moved again. After ho had fallen down Spencer shot him through the back, saying, ' He will steal no more rice.'" The defence of the prisoner was that he went in fear of his life from the deceased, and if ho had not shot the black, the black would have killed him ; but this hypothesis was not supported by evidenco, and was discredited by the judge. The jury, under judicial guidance, found tho prisoner guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy; but after the sentence was passed they signed a letter stating that had they known they could have returned a verdict of manslaughter they would have done 60. The actions of the prisoner, and the regrets of the jury over their Rhadamanthiuo severity, are in accordance with the view expressed as to the small sanctity attaching to human life when the victim is a blackfellow.