The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-05-27 00:00:00

ITILE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER

while at Antofc gaga Big George attempted to swim ashore
from the ship, lie did not hear of any of the crew swimming
away from the ship at Antofoga,ta, but the German cook
eft at night. The prisoner slept with the Engiteh portion of
the crew after the killing of the captain until the Maltese
left; after that he slept iu the cabin with Big George and
Nicholas. Big George always had a revolver in tes peaces-
Mon. The prisoner, on the night of the 11th of March, re-
ceived one wound in front of the shoulder, two on the back,
two on the head, and a scratch on the neck. The prisoner
was the only person he saw stab the second mate.
By Mr. Gilimin,—The foreign sailors were treated in like.
manner with the rest of the crew, and a little better. Wit-
ness did not see the revolver with Big George until after the
murder of the captain, whose revolver it was. Two days
after the murder witness saw Big George take the captain's
revolver and discharge it over the aide ot the vessel, and the
prisoner did the same with another revolver; the revolver
the prisoner had belonged to the skip.
James Carrick was sworn, and examined by Ur. Gillman.—
He belonged to Liverpool, and joined the Caswell at Buenos
Ayres on the 23th of August, 1875, as an able seaman. There
were II hends, all told, in the ship. They left Antofogasta
and proceeded on their voyage. Oct the 4th of January, at
4 a.m., witness saw the caetaln on deck, bat did not hear
bias eive any instructions to any of the crew. He afterwards
heard loud shouts, and on looking round saw Big George
with a knife in his hand, raised above his head.
Joseph, who was at the wheel, ran towards where the
captain was lying. Witness heard a shot, and saw the
smoke. He then observed the captain lying on the deck
with his entrails out. The chief mate ran down to the
captains assistance on the starboard side, and witness on the
port side. The latter saw the second mate bleeding from
the arm. The prisoner was at the break of the poop, and
as the second mate passed him he stabbed him in the back
with a mast knife. The second mate rushed towards the
carpenter's, but was there overtaken by Big George,
Bombes, and the others, who stabbed and shot Mm all
over the boetv., Big George held the second mate round
the neck wittiT one hand, and with the other -repeetedly
stabbed him, at the same time singing a song, Gaspar
shot him In the leg. Nicholas and Joseph were standing
by at the time. A few minutes after that witness saw
the mete lying dead near the galley door, which was
covered with blood. The steward came up from the
cabin Joseph shot at him, and all the Greeks stabbed
him. His heart was cut out by Big George. The others were all
round at this time, and Gasper shot him. They left the body
on the poop, and ran towards the witness, who was at the
corner of the carpenter's doof, at the port side. He ran
round the 1 tre-part of the home and into the galley,
stepping over the mate's dead Lody on his way, and
concealed himself in the coal-bunker. Nicholas came
into the galley, and witness asked him it they were going
to kill them all. He said "No ; you are all right." Witness
then came out, and while he WAS standing on the galley
Nicholas, Gasper, and Big George kissed him. The last said,
"You are a seaman on board the same as I am" After that
they went aft. Witness saw Joseph walking the poop with
a revolver in his hand, and he ordered the stream anchor
to be got out. The witness then described the throwieg over-
board of the bodies, in which they all assisted. There was
life in the csptain and second mate. The witness pointed
out on a chart where the murder occurred. It was in
about lat. 24 south, and long. 74 west. Joseph ordered
them to clean down the decks. 1 hay took breakfast on the
poop, where the steward was killed. After breakfast Big
George rushed down into the cabin. Witness was directed to
go into the cabin and point out the position of the
vessel, which he did. While he was in the cabin Lig
George went into the eaptains room, followed by
Joseph, who had a hatchet. They closed the door,
and witness heard them forcing drawers. Big George
came out of the state•room and said, " M iney no
got." Witness understood from him that they had got
no money, otherwise they would give the crew, some of it.
Big Geeree returned into the state-room, Nicholas going
with him. Witness left the cabin and came on deck.
Nicholas came up a short time afterwards, dressed in the
captain's jacket and the mate's shirt and trousers. The
Greeks and Maltese occupied the cabin and the state-
room after the murder, with the exception of Bombes,
who slept in the forecastle, until the 19th of February.
After this Nicholas was appointed master by the Greeks to
work the ship, and the Maltese proposed that witness
should work the ship for them. That arrangement con-
tinued until they arrived ff the River Prate, when the
Maltese left. Previous to panting with the Maltese witness
gave Gasper a letter, telling him to go on board a man-of-
war and deliver it. The letter stated that a mutiny had
occurred, ad that the master, mate, second mate, and
steward had been murdered Witness gave the Maltese a
good character in the letter. The witness then detailed the
subsequent incidents of the voyage, and the affair of the 12th
of March, when the Englishmen attacked and killed Big
George and Nicholas, and disabled Bsnaboa. He was con-
viuced, he said, that the Greeks had intended to kill them.
His statements agreed with the evidence of M'Gregor. The
witness identified an entry in the lee-book as in the hand-
writing of Nicholas. It was written in Greek, and was dated
January 4. Mr. Cartwright translated the entry as fol-
lows :

I wit

"About the hour of 810 the captain was killed, and the
mate, second mate, and steward We continued on our
course, following the orders of the perpetrators."
The boy Ferguson was next examined, and his account of
the transaction was substantially the same as that already
detailed.

The bark Caswell, which left Queenstown on Thurs-
day morning in last week, arrived at the Quay at
Bristolon Monday morning. Police had to be stationed
on her decks to keep off persons who, from shore and
from boats, attempted to board her. Subsequently
a notice was issued that visitors would be admitted,
at a charge of sixpence per head, to inspect the
scene of the struggle in the cabin, where James
Carrick, the young Scotchman, and the carpenter
and John Dunne overpowered the two mutineers,
Christo and Nicholas. About 1,000 persons visited
the vessel in this way in the afternoon, and it was
announced that these admission of the public would be
continued at certain hours daily during the vessel's
stay in Bristol, and that the proceeds would be given
in aid of a fund being raised for the destitute widows
and children. The Caswell, after discharging her cargo,
will proceed to Swansea. Her master, Captain George
Edward Best, has left a Widow and three children in
London. - -

EXECUTION OF THE " LENNIE"
MUTINEERS.
In London, on Tuesday morning, the four men—
chiefly, if not all, Greeks'—convicted at thelatst•Sessions
of tue Central- Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice •
Brett, and senteeced to death, for the part they
took in the mutiny and murders on board the
Lennie, were executed within the prison of New.
gate. Their names, as may be remembered,
were Matte° Corgalis, aged 36, better known as
" French Peter ; " Paacaler Caladis, 33, otherwiee
"Big Harry ;" George Kaida, 22, otherwise " Lips ;"
and Giovanni Caceres, 21, otherwise "Joe the Cook."
After their trial and conviction the doomed men were
repeatedly visited in prison by the Greek Archimandrite
in the City of London,.Dr. Hieronymus Myriantheus ;
and by the Greek Vice-Consul, M. LIMIT Eli. Even-
tually, :mettle brief interval after conviction began to
wear away, the convicts axe said to have in E ffect acknow-
ledged their guiltand the -anstice of their sentence, add-
ing that they must have ken teinpted hy the devil; that
they deeply repented the crimes they had committed.
and were grateful for the time allowed them for re-
pentance. After the vial a of the Greek Archimandrite
they gave themselves up to fasting and prayer, and
before retiring to rest on Monday evening they ex-
pressed their grateful acknowledgments for the con-
siderate attention and consolation tisey had received
after their conviction from the Greek Archimandrite
and the Vice Consul; "French Peter" adding, it is
understood, that in their own country, for such a crime,
they would have been executed at once, without any
interval for Tepentance.
The sentence was executed shortly after eight o'clock
in the morning, in a yard at the back of the prison,
the same in which the convict Wainwright was exe-
cuted, and in like circumstances as to the manner of
execution. Besides the representatives of the Press,
a limited number of persons were present, as was
also a small detachment of the City Police. The
'Greek 'Archimandrite, accompanied by the Vice-
Consul, had, it is understood, earlier in the morn-
ing visited the convicts in their separate cells,
and the Archimandrite had enraged them itu prayer.
Shortly before eight o'clock the men were intro-
duced to Marwood, the executioner, and submitted
themselves to the process of pinioning. They had pre-
viously written letters to their friends, which they in-
trusted to the Graek Consul to be forwarded to their
respective destinations. At length—all the necessary
arrangements having been completed—the convicts
were seen emerging one by one from the gaol to the
place of execution, the prison bell tolling the while,
and the Greek Archimandrite attending and sustain-
ing them to the last. First came "French Pater,"
as he was called; next Caludis,eitherwise "Big Harry;"
then Kaida, otherwise "Lips ;" and lastly Cacaris,
alias "Joe the Cook," each wearing a white calico '
cap "Big Harry," on being placed on the scaffold,
said, with a smile, addressing those within hearing,
"Good bye, good bye !" "Joe the Cook," who had
but recently attained his 21st year, appeared to realize
the doom that awaited him far more acutely than any
of the rest, and as the noose was being adjusted seemed
to be on the point of fainting. At last, all things
being in readiness, at a touch by the executioner, Mar-
wood, the drop fell with a dreadful crash, and the men,
all of whom were still in their prime, had expiated their
crime with their lives.
According to the custom of late years, immediately
after the sentence of the law had been carried into
effect, a black flag was hoisted over the roof of the
prison, and the bodies of the convicts, after hanging
an hour, were taken down and subsequently submitted
to a coroner's inquest, at the conclie-ion of which, Mr.
Gibson, the prison surgeon, having officially certified
that hie in each case was extinct, a verdict was given
in accordance with the circumstances. Later in the
day the dead bodies, placed in a shell with quick-limp,
were buried within the precincts of the prison—the
place of sepulture being part of the sentence—and in
immediate contiguity, as it happened, to the remains
of the famous Cato-street conspirators.
Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Knight, Mr. Sheriff
Breffit, with the T_Teder•Sneriffs, Messrs. Baylis
and Crawford, and the Governor of Newgate, Mr.
Sidney Smith, were at their respective posts on the,
occasion. Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Knight after-
wards made a communication to the representatives
of the Press present, to the effect that they would
be pleased to hear that three of the prisoners
—" Big Harry" being the exception—had confessed
that they were participators in the crimes of which
they had been convicted, and acknowledged the just-
ness of the sentence. "Joe the Cook," however, he
said, persisted in asserting that he took part in the
affray under compulsion. They all thanked the
Sheriffs for their attention, and the Governor and
attendants of the prison for the kindness they had re-
ceived since their condemnation.

LIEUT. CAMERON ON THE ANTHRO-
POLOGY OF CENTRAL AFRICA,
At a meeting of the members of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Colonel Lane
Fox, president, in the chair, held in London on Tues-
day, in the theatre of the Society of Mines, Jermyn-
street, St. James's, Lieutenant Cameron, C.R, RN.,
read a paper on the above subject. The distinguished
traveller said that owing to ages of Mahometan immi-
gration the pure type of the negro did not at present
exist on the East Coast of Africa, from which they had
been driven inland. In Madagascar there were many
tribes of Malay origin. Amongst those tribes were
some who wore their hair down their backs to their
waist, some who had strong hark woven through
their wool, and others again who sported wigs. He
then proceeded to give a rapid description of the
characteristics and manners of the various tribes along
his route, by many of which he wee warmly welcomed,
and by others very coldly indeed. In describing the
dress of the ladies in various of these nations the
lecturer caused considerable amusement amongst his
audience. There were ladies, he said, in the interior
somewhat scantily, albeit picturesquely, clothed, who
wore their hair divided by four parthn s, each woven
into a plait and all wound round the head, the ends
being adorned with beads and po'ished steel ex-
tinguishers, so as to form a coronet; others who
wore tattooing knives in their hair, and adorned
or disfigured their fares with paint, and again those
amongst the lower classes who perforated the upper lip
and inserted a stone which made the lip protrude like a
duck's bill. Besides these there were ladies will sported
leather head-dresses—the most hideous ever invented,
the hkent s es to which when he left England were, he
believed, called chignons. (Laughter.) In describing
the industries and manufactures of the great conti-
nent he stated that the natives in some places ground
their corn with the trunks of trees; and the pottery.
ware manufactured strongly reminded him of speci-
mens dug up in the ruins of Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum. In his travels he came to a country where
the iron trade was in a flourishing condition,
there being many foundries about bOft. long by
301 t. wide, where they frequently got 1501 b. to
2001 b. of metal in a single smelting. Here he
had seen pieces of iron worked simply by the
hammer and moulded into various shapes, including the
human form, as complekly finished as if manipulated
by the most skilfut English artisan. Among the
Fetish men whom he met, the priests were for the most
part clever ventriloquists, an art which they put to
very profitable purpose, as was shown by the answers
of their idols, whicn were favourable or otherwise ac-
cording to the value of the offerings.
At the conclusion of the lecture there was a brief
conversation, in which the Duke of Argyll, Mr.
Charles Hamilton, Sir John Lubbock, M.P., Mr.
Consul Hartley, and others took part, and the pro-
ceedings terminated with a cordial vote of thanks to
Lieutenant Cameron.

to England in shattered health. Scarcely, however,
allowinj himself time to recruit the year 1865 SAW
Captain Forbes once more on the way to the East, On
this occasion his visit was in the firs • . • tonne to Saigon,
for the purpose of obtaining f reisch Govern-
ment in Cochin China a tele: a . concession, and
thence he proceeded to Japan in-order to negcciate a
loan with the Government of that country. He failed
in this, but establi.hed such relations as enabled him to
return to England in the capacity of Agent for the
Chinese and Japanese, for the purchase of arms and
vessels of war. Before leaving Japan he made a most
interesting exploration of the then almost unknown
island of Yen°, the results of which he embodied in a
paper for the Royal Geographical Society. He now
for a short time devoted himself to mercantile pur-
suits connected with this agency in London, but
was once more tempted out to China by the offer
from the Imperial Government of the appoint-
ment of Marine Commissioner and Inspector
of Chinese Lighthouass. This novel and inte-
resting position ha held for about two years,
when he again returned to England; this time
by way of California. Ile was so much struck with
the resources of that rapidly developing portion of the
Western Hemisphere that be determined to extend his
financial operations—which had now become consider-
able—in that direction. His usual shrewdness and
good luck did not desert him in this new field of enter-
prise, and as the result of two expeditions to the
mineral regions of Nevada he drew as a prize a share
of the Comstock Mine, and about a year ago returned
to his own country in possession of a very large for-
tune. Unhappily it came too late. A typhus fever,
during which he remained for 17 days delirious in San
Francisco, shattered a constitution which much expo-
sure to bad climates had undermined, and thus pre-
maturely terminated a life of incident and adventure,
of which we have been only able to give a brief sketch,
at the comparatively early age of 47.
Few men were • more universally liked or more
I widely known. Without a decided literary faculty,
Captain Forbes lived much in the world of letters;
but whether he was campaigning by land or by sea,
or engaged in some commercial speculation, exploring
an unknown country, buying a mine, or writing a
book, building men-of-war, or inspecting Chinese
lighthouses, his coolness, courage, and shrewd com-
mon sense invariably secured success, while his kindly
and genial finalities, and the originality which cha-
racterised all his acts obtained for him a notoriety
and popularity peculiarly his own. Had he lived in a
more exciting period of the world's history he would
have made himself a great name. As it is, his death
has caused a gap in a very wide and varied circle of
society, and many men the most dissimilar in race,
religion, and position will sigh when they hear that
Charles Forbes is dead.

"Amiens" writes to The Times of Monday :—" I
am sure that every one who had the happiness of the
late Charles Forbes's friendship will read your account
in The Times of Thursday of his 'adventurous career'
with pleasure and satisfaction. But there is one point
in his character which your article has not alluded to.
I refer to the unostentatious charity of the late Charles
Forbes. No one knows better thas the writer of these
lines how no friend or evenaoquaintance of the ' Como-
dore ' (as he was familiarly called) who applied to him
for advice or help but had his request or his want
supplied. I have on several occasions at his request
sent considerable sums to poor or struggling men, who
to this hour have never known who the good Samari-
tan was who helped them in their hour of need. But
this charming trait in his character was only in keep-
ing with his whole life, which, as your article states,
was not one only of daring and adventure, bat also of
generous and warm-hearted impulses."