CHARGE AGAINST MISSIONARIES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1076, 23 July 1880, Page 2

CHARGE AGAINST MISSIONARIES.

The London -"'Echo*" of 11th May, has the following :— A pamphlet has just .been issued, making the most 'ex-; traordinary charges against certain Presbyterian missionaries in Central Africa,, at Bkntyre, near Lake Nyassa. The "writer, Mr. Andrew Chirnside, F. R. Gr. S., says that the statements he makes can be attested on oath by eyewitnesses, and that in point of fact those immediately- ■ concerned never attempted the slightest, denial when questioned on the subject by Mr. Chirnside himself.. According to the pamphlet from which* ye quote two men were actually sefitenced to death : by. the , missionaries for the supposed murder of a woman. One escaped, but as to the other, eight riatives were 'told off to shoot him. Twice* they fired a volley,., then,, whiter lie was not 'dead, lie' 'was "flung irttd "-ah open grave, and. his brains were blown out by a -meiciful hand. . The^ execution has produced a kind of guerilla warfare between the missionaries and some of the native chiefs. The writer also gives an account of a deep pit sunk in the ground, used as aphsoi^jfa which men are kept three or four days together without food or water, and he further gives a horrible story mfa-negro :who was actually flogged to death for "He says :— " After receiving a good deal more than two; hundred Jtfshes 1 • three natives took the senseless form of their' victim -down, arid tflrft'g&ing^ him into the store,, chained him to a poßt, and left him. Hktf t&nhour after, Bismark (a negro) came to j 'the 7 whites; atrd-saidhe • thought something i was* wrongs, and on going into'tUe storethey saW the' mangled corpse of what had) been that morning one of G-od's, jsrea-. tures. Flogging with the whip is ah every day occurrerice'-i&tMrj&e' lads in one day getting -."pwards.flf 108 lashes.'? and it is a fact thatj after being flogged on Several occasion'^ sIEKLhas been, t pbbftd . on their,, backs," .These augments certainly appear incredible ; but m the 1 interests of natives 'and MSsioharies and . of the civilisation of. Africa, we I trust that the Aborigines Protection Society or some other impartial body may make a searching inquiry into their truthful- - ness.