THE MURDER OF MR BAILLIE AT FIJI.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 1760, 21 June 1877, Page 3

THE MURDER OF MR BAILLIE AT FIJI.

(Australasian.)

Some extraordinary rumors m connexion with the death of the late Mr W. G. Baillie at Fiji, have been, circulated of late m Melbourne. The circumstances of the unhappy event hare almost passed out of mind, and it may be an act of jus- , tice to recall them. Only one newspaper, the Fiji Times, was published m Fiji at the time, and the particulars given m the Melbourne journals were all obtained from it. In one of its issues, the Fiji Times announces the arrival at Levuka of the Messrs Kelt, • from Suava, with the sad intelligence of the death of Mr Baillie. Mr Baillie was at the time m partnership with Henry Scott, by trade a joiner, and formerly of Collingwood. He and Baillie lived m one house, and Mrs Baillie and' her daughter m another. On the morning of the 13th March, 1871, Mrs Bajl-

lie went into the men's house, and seeing blood on the mosquito curtains, looked into tho bed, and there found the corpse of her murdered husband. Judging from the appearances, Mr Baillie had been seized by the throat, and his head had been beaten m with a tomahawh or some other heavy instrument. He must have been attacked suddenly, for there wer« no signs of any struggle. An inquest was held the next day, presided over by W. H. Brewer, and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against Scott, who was missing, as was also a rifle and a revolver and £180 m sovereigns, the latter being the property of the Messrs Kelt, who had left tho money for safe keeping, their plantation being further inland. A reward of £5 was offered for the apprehension of Scott, m order to enlist tho aid of the natives, and it was determined that, if captured, he should be sent for trial to Sydney. Some days afterwards the Fiji Times announced the discovery of the body of Scott. According to this narrative, Scott is supposed to have wondered about the vicinity of the catastrophe until, worn out with remorse and indisposition, he committed suicide. We read, "It would appear that he undressed himself and secured his clothes m the fork of a tree on the banks of the Neimbucalo Creek, some miles from the scene of the murder, and leaving his gun with his clothes went into the creek and shot himself." When the body was found it was m an advanced stage of decomposition, but it was easily identified. None of the money was found with the clothes, but £6 or thereabouts was subsequently recovered from the natives. The white settlers were uncertain whether they should bury the body or hold an inquest upon it, and here the account breaks off, and the affair seems to have been dismissed from memory. We are told, however, that as a matter of fact the settlers did neither one thing or the other, but gathered wood together and burned the remains. No suspicion appears to have been entertained m Fiji that anyone but Scott could be inplicated m the crime, and any theory that Scott was a victim involves the supposition that the murderer was able to kill two men without alarming the inmates of the adjoining house, and then dragged the one body a mile away without leaving any sign of his presence. The absence of the money is the only circumstance calculated to arouse suspicion, but the natives may have taken it or some white man who concealed his discovery of the body. No suspicion appears to have been entertained at Suva, and the origin of the rumors which have disturbed Melbourne was apparently a paragraph m a Gippsland newspaper stating that the actual murderer of Mr Baillie was alive and m VVictoriaa — a statement to which other journals gave currency, pointing it with allusions which Dr Macartney, M.L.A., has taken home to himself. Dr Macartney was the owner of the plantation adjoining that of Mr Baillie, but we learn that at the time of the outrage he was absent looking after a second plantation which he had on the Ba coast, and he did not return until the whole of the sad affair was over. As the public are aware, however, the member for South Gippsland has a divorce suit pending, and the understanding is that the rumor arose out of allegations as to certain wandering statements said to have been made by Dr Macartney before he became a Good Templar. The pity is that the painful rumor ever obtained publicity.