DARWIN MAN-HUNT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22991, 19 March 1938, Page 18

DARWIN MAN-HUNT

WOMAN ATTACKED LYNCHING STORIES UNFOUNO SUSPECT SOON ARRESTED Tfrom our own corrkspondent] SYDNEY, March r_> Darwin people have been misrepresented by "scare" stories telegraphed I to southern newspapers about their in- j tention to lynch an aboriginal who had! assaulted a ivoinan in her home, and : also a neighbour who had come to her 1 aid. Residents naturally joined the police in a man-hunt for the suspect, i but their an«er and indignation never reached the intensity of taking the law j in their own hands. "Lynching parties" j were never thought of, even by the| hottest heads. These facts became clear from the I later messages concerning the happen- i iug, and there is natural indignation 1 among officials and reputable residents . that sensational accounts should have been sent south, and thejice to many } oversea countries.

Aboriginal's Action The first woman attacked was in her house on Railway Hill, when the aboriginal entered and attempted to assault her. He flung her to the floor and kicked and punched her. Her frenzied screams brought a neighbour rushing to the scene. As the first woman raced upstairs, the black abandoned his first victim and flung himself on the second woman, punching, kicking and clawing her. Ultimately he escaped into the bush. The intensive man-hunt which was immediately organised lasted four days. The arrest of the suspect was an anticlimax. Constable Eric McNab, who ha> been singularly successful in native cases during his 10 years in the Northern Territory force, arrived at Darwin after the hunt had been in progress for three days, and was immediately instructed to commence investigations into the assaults. Accompanied by "Charlie," a black tracker, he searched the locality of the house where the assaults occurred, and found a reasonably well preserved footprint ijn soft ground. "Charlie" immediately declared that it was the track of a Melville Island "boy." Further investigations revealed that a native employee of a Chinese grocery had been in the vicinity before tlie women were attacked . Tracker's Quicls Work The tracker found broken grass, where, he said, the "boy" had changed clothing and hidden a bicycle. The tracker deduced that the assailant had changed his clothing there, entered the house clad only in dirty white "shorts" and, after his escape, had changed into long trousers and a singlet. \\ ith the change of clothing, he said, it would be difficult for an inexperienced white person to recognise the black again. A lightning raid was made on the native compound, four miles from the town. Native police boys were placed at vantage points around the area, and atl Bat hurst Island and Melville Island "boys," all of whom speak the same tongue, were called together. J.he ■wanted "boy" was singled out and handcuffed. It is alleged that a particular type of grass seed which grows near where the bicycle had been was still adhering to his singlet. He was taken back to the scene, and footprints were measured, and are alleged to coincide with the tracks found there. Confession ia Court A confession in open Court followed. The magistrate asked the arrested aboriginal if he knew why he was in Court, and the aboriginal replied, in "pidgin" English: "Yes. I bin go along a house. I bin hittem missus." He said he was a Melville Islander, and his "white fella'' name was Packsaddle. Employed by a firm of Chinese merchants as a messenger, Packsaddle, the police learned, reported for work each day after the day of the assault. Carrying out his duties in a normal manner, he gave no cause for suspicion. The police allege that ha appeared at the Chinese store immediately after the crime was committed and went then with a letter awaiting delivery to the house of one of the women assaulted. . , t . , The incidents have brought into conflict opposite achools of thought those who expresm alarm at the "pampering nature of aboriginal legislation and ordinances framed under missionary influence." and those, mostly anthropologists and missionaries, who warn against "race hysteria" and the makip" of an individual's transgression an excuse for attacking the whole black j race.