The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, 2nd DECEMBER, 1886.

Southland Times, Issue 9390, 2 December 1886, Page 2

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, 2nd DECEMBER, 1886.

— The fact that nine of the blackguards implicated in the outrage on a young \ woman at Mount Kenuie, in the suburbs of Sydney, have been convicted and sentenced to death must be regarded as in tlie very highest degree satisfactory. A worse crime was never committed m any of the Australian colonies, not even in Sydney where outrages of the same description have been painfully common. ( It is difficult to conceive how human ! beings can sink into such fathomless cepravity. This combination of the fiend and the brute, the proper human qualities seeming to be wholly eliminated from the character, is a strange product of our | colonial civilisation, it is, in the strict sense of the word, a monstrosity, something out of the ordinary course of nature, but unfortunately of very frequent occurrence in the colonies of Australia. In many of the streets of Sydney it is not safe for a woman to walk unprotected in broad daylight ; and does not this outrage at Mount Rennie throw a kind of lurid glare on the seething mass of corruption which that original seat of transported cenvictisni must contain ? The particulars of the crime are too shocking to be detailed. Suffice it to cay that a number of fiends in human shape conspired to outrage a poor innocent girl, and nearly tortured her to death with the ferocious barbarities of their hellish lust. A more horrible afternoon's work has seldom been done in the face of heaven in aDy country, savage or civilised . but indeed it is sad to think that only in a civilised community could such a crime be committed. The cruelties and abominations of barbarians or savages are, all things considered, of a less atrocious character. No words could express the enormity of this particular crime. It is an outrage, not only on a defenceless woman, but upon our common natoiv, and can only be avenged by the death of the offenders. These wretched persons have been condemned to the gallows. So far the proceedings against them are, we say, eminently satisfactory. But will the sentenc& be carried into effect ? That is now the question. We cannot help calling to mind a similar crime which wag perpetrated in the same colony some seven or eight years ago. Two youths, one of them, if we remember right, fourteen years of a^c, ani the other '

twenty-one, t outraged a young girl who had, gone to fetch water from a well at some litfclft distance from her home. The tw§ young blackguards were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. ißut a howl of - convict-tainted commiseration was immediately raised throughout the community. Meetings were held and petitions got up for the purpose of procuring a commutation ~of the Bentence. Sir Henry Parkes, who was then Premier of New South Wales, stood firm for a while, and boldly declared that the Government would not advise the Crown to exercise its* prerogative of mercy. The agitation, however, became so loud, so furious, and so widespread that Sir Henry was compelled, though (to his honour, be it Baid) much against his will, to give way. The extreme youth of one of the prisoners might seem to justify the demand for a reprieve; and yet it was this mere boy who planned the outrage. The point in debate between the Government and the excited population was really whether it was more merciful to spare the lives of the prisoners or to ensure the safety of women by the example of their death. This point we shall not venture to decide, although we have a pretty strong opinion in favour of the latter alternative ; but w<* have no hesitation in saying that a scandalous miscarriage of justice will take place if the prisoners in the present case do not suffer the extreme penalty of the law. Their death, abhorrent as such a wholesale hanging is from onr modern humanitarian sentimentp, would strike terror to the very heart of larrikindom. And this is precisely what is wanted. The larrikins have reigned supreme in some of the Australian towns and cities far too long. If there had been such a thing as government in those colonies this gigantic evil would have been subdued, if not completely extirpated, years ago. But the larrikin element pervades all classes. It has recently shown itself to be rampant in tbe New South Wales Legislature ; and it was commonly asserted that in the other case to which we have referred a strong criminal sympathy for the two young villains was manifested in the same quarter. ' We have heard however that an intense feeling of indignation and horror haa been excited in the community at large by tbe Mount Rennie outrage ; and we trust that no revulsion will take place in behalf of the prisoners. Let U3 hope moreover that all the Governments of the colonies will take steps for the protection of women from the blackguardism which is growing up in each and all of them, New Zealand itself not excepted. It is a foul stain on the colonial reputation — a stain which ought to make us hold our tongues whenever we feel inclined to boast of the wonders of our material progress. For, be it remembered, the men convicted of the Mount Rennie crime were not members of the so-called criminal class, but men following the ordinary purtuits of the colony — a genuine product of the soil ! What can be expected of a colony which produces such citizens ?