FRIGHTENED OF POLICE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 1

FRIGHTENED OF POLICE.

Terrified Blacks Cling to Missionary. DARWIN, April 12. The five Caledon Bay blacks, charged with the murder of Constable M’Coll and Japanese trepangers, behaved like wild beasts when they were arrested and locked up last night. To-day they were so terrified that they had to be dragged forcibly from the lock-up to the court room. When they saw some handcuffs they yelled pitifully for the Rev A. J. Dyer, who brought them to Darwin yesterday. Later when he appeared they clung to him. They struggled strenuously before they were torn apart. Scene in Court. To-day’s scene in the Darwin Court is the culmination of an extraordinary chapter of historv in the making of contact with the blacks by white men. When the Rev IT. E. Warren and the Rev A. J. Dyer (a leading missionary in the Northern Territory) left for Arnhem Land their main object was to get in touch with the Caledon Bay blacks who were alleged to have been responsible for the killing of Constable M’Coll and a number of Japanese trepangers. Constable M’Coll was killed by the blacks when he went into Arnhem Land to investigate the murder of a number of Japanese trepangers. These had been killed by the natives because they were alleged to have interfered with their women folk. These murders aroused such horror that a punitive expedition against the blacks was suggested, but such widespread disapproval was evoked by this proposal that it was dropped. Then Mr Warren undertook to lead a peace mission into Arnhem Land. The wild natives, ignorant of the laws of the white man, did not understand the enormity of their crime in the eyes of civilisation. Played About Boat. In Mr Gray’s lugger the five natives arrived at Darwin yesterday in charge of Mr Dyer. They were as happy as children, playing about the boat, but when they were arrested last night they soon showed their fear. Two of them are charged with the murder of Constable M’Coll. The others with having massacred five Japanese trepangers at Caledon Bay in 1932. Although the police here are doubtful about the evidence they have against most of the natives, the laying of the charges in the Court to-day was merely a formal procedure.