Were Australian Soldiers Thieves?

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12021, 21 March 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Were Australian Soldiers Thieves?

An Australian judge has made a aensa- 5 tion by his remarks r,s to the character ' of the men who composed the Australian contingents in South Africa. At the Distriot Court of Orange, New South Wales, a member of the New South Wales Mounted Rifles was charged with receiving cattle, kr-'wing them to have been stolen. He pleaded guilty, but called several witnesses as to his previous character, which seems to have been exemplary. At the same time, it was admitted that since his return from the war he had been rather wild and unsettled. Of one of the witnesses, a returned contingenter, the Judge asked whether there was any truth in the " calumny" that the Australians were such inveterate thieves that they were not allowed to camp in the towns of South Africa. The witness replied that it was not true of his own compony, as they always camped in towns. In sentencing the accused to three years' imprisonment, the Judge remarked that there was yet time for him to reform", and become a good citizen as well as a good soldier. Personally, he appears to have had little hope of this, as he addel that it mighthave been as well for the prisoner if he had fallen in one of the engagements covered with glory. Enlarging on his theme, His Honour went on to say that it had been remarked by him that after the Australians went to the war there was a large diminution in the number of cases at- the criminal courts, and he had been officially informed that it was because the criminal class had been so largely recruited for the war. Naturally this sweeping assertion roused the indignation of the Australian public, and Colonel Otter took the earliest opportunity of denying its accuracy, declaring that a majority of the men were- of the highest respectability, while many in the ranks were members of well-known Australian families. He pointed out that the demand for Australians in South Africa was so great that " any man who could speak English had only to say he was an Australian to be at once taken on." A number of such men joined irregular corps, and subsequently committed acts for which the reputation of genuine Australians suffered. This is no doubt the real explanation why in some quarters, Australians, apart altogether from the " commandeering" which was an inevitable corollary of the irregular warfare of the last- year of the war, are classed with the "scallywag" regiments, whose deeds were no credit to the British army.

Lieutenant de Magnee, of the Congo Free State, left Brussels for Africa on February 4th, 1901. to take over the command of Fort Beni. -which lies near the English territory of Uganda. He had five native.-? under his orders. On the night of June 14th the foit was attacked by native.'', called the Valindos, who ars well known as a, -warlike and cannibal tribe. Lieutenant de Magnee and his soldiers were mr.ssßcred and eaten. No further details are obtainable at preser.t. Fort Beni lies close to the south--vre.it border of Uganda. It is on the River Semliki, -which connects Lake Albert with Albert F.dv.-.-ird Lake. Fort Beni is almost tl«i most easterly point ef the Congo Fre3 State, and is "on the edge of dense forest country. Messrs Elder Dempster and Co. have contracted to convey to Canada in one of their steamers a party of British colonists consisting of 2000 persons. They are to settle in the district of Saskatoon, in the North-West Territory, and are to be given by the Canadian Government special facilities and protection from encroachment by other nationalities. Sufficient land Trill be granted by the Canadian Government to build eighteen townships, each family receiving 160 acres free. The settlors* will censist mainly of farmers and agricultural lahourer?, and not a fow are going from the Channel Islands. The colonists pay their owe passage, and the majority of them have a little capital. The Rev. J. M. Barr, lato curate in charge of St. Saviour's, Tollington-park, N., will go out in charge of the. party, which sails from Liverpool on March 21st for St. Johns, N.B. Mr Barr has the authority of the Dominion Government to take out this party, which is to be called a " Special British Colony," and foreigners will not be permitted to settle on its reserved territory. It is expected that of the 2000 about 500 will be saloon passengers. "What shall we call the baby?" is a question that grievously agitates the parents of this complicated age. Ordinary and even extraordinary names have been so multiplied, and orthodox Christian prefixes are comparatively so. few, that fathers and mothers are compelled to go. further afield than the Bible, in order 'to ensure the noncoinciden.ee of their offspring's full name with that of some neighbouring babe, fh? war opened up a temporary name mine, but there was such an insensate rush on the claim that people speedily wore off the novelty of "Badens" and "Pretorias." Flowers have been run to earth for personal appellations, and patent medicine wrappers have even been placed under tribute by despairing parents. For generations America has striven to differentiate new arrivals by calling in the Old Testament, and so we have the nerve-racking abbreviations "Sile," "Abe," "Mose," and the rest. Lempriere, too, has been turned inside out to supply mouth-filling titles for the babes destined to be the young ladies of some "Akedemy." The United States also gave a vogue to the custom of using .surnames Christian-wise. Thus were given to the world J. Quincy Adams, W. Cullen Bryant, H. Wadsworth Longfellow, O. WenffcTl Holmes, and J. Russell Lowell, to mention only names from the world of literature. In the days when Rome was great a name told one something about its bearer, not always to that individual's liking. The man who had a wart on his nose, for instance, was distinguished in this way from his brother who had a S ™l V h 'v The name of S «pio the Elder, after his conquest of Carthage was Publius Cornelius Scipio Africans' Cornell was th e nomen, or name proper denoting his origin from the Cornelian gen.; or tribe : Scipio was the cognomen, or accompanying name, of his father's familv; 1 übhus was the praenomen, or first name, to distinguish him from his brothers; Atricanus was the agnomen, or added name, gven to signalise his success in Africa. His grandson by adoption was the son of one Paulus, and so we have him ■■billed Pubhus Cornelius Scipio Atricanus minor. There mar have been manv Julius Caesars, members' of the Caesar branch of the Julian gens, but " Cains " the only on« to win fettie.