The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-16 00:00:00

SAVAGE MURDER IN JAMAICA.

(From the Cornwall Chronicle.)
Pro-
vidence, was takinast:
On Thursday 1 as Mr. Ali`Callum, the overseer on Pro-
was attracted% is usual ride round the estate, his atten-
tionof crows hovering
above e appearance of an unusual number
a certain spot lying off the public
road towards the sea b
Ai' Callu
ascertain the object of their ; he was thereupon induced to
, a distance
attraction, and, on advancing
towards the place
on
ot? of about eighty yards from the
road, he was horrified
hosderving the skeleton of a human
body, on which the birds apparently fully completed their
horrid 'oanquet. Mr.
lost no time in summoning
persons from the estate, arid a ram
minute investigation of
the skeleton took place. The sex":
wined by the clothing, which, , thoughttorn, appeared to be
the deceased was deter-
that of a girl about twelve or four,teoeon4Years old; with the
the body was completely divested of flesh.
the legs, on which
exception of tho hands, the throat
tsoas to have cut
the skin remained,
The arms were bound so forcibly with while
i stick was
through the skin, and thus stretched out
impression
accom-
plish extension ; the legs were also bound about the ankles greatest
with the same substitute for corsage; a piece
ofles loosely
found driven up the left nostril, and the general
on the minds of those who were present, appeared
the unfortunate deceased had been violated by son:11100e, that
who bad thus cruelly secured her person in order to
plish their hellish object ; after which, to prevent detection,
they had thus ruthlessly murdered her, and abandoned her
miserable remains in the callous manner in which they were
found. The deceased was a girl of fourteen years old, called
Maria Duncan, the daughter of a black woman, named Mary
Duncan, living in this town. Four negroes have been appre-
hended on suspicion.
___--,.•••.....••••••••iff xi

THE LATE RIOTS IN THE POTTERIES,— The examina-
tion, of Ellis, for high treason, was resumed on uedsauayw,
aast
Newcastle. The only witness examined during tle
yw
Mr. George Goodwin, cabinet-maker, of Hanley,
n the
,
stated that on Tuesday, the 16th of August, be was e
streets of Hanley, at two o'clock in the morning, near
iho
Rev. Mr. Aitkin's house, which was then on fire, and ob-
served the prisoner, whom lie had known for a period of
seven or eight years. The prisoner was within the area of
the railings, and had his face blackened ; but he did not ob-
serve him commit any particular act. About 150 persons
were present regaling themselves with wine, and many of
them were lying about drunk. He afterwards met the pri-
soner about six o'clock in the morning, near the Royal Oak
Inn. He had then washed his face and changed his appear-
ance, and was in company with a large number of persons
walking four a-breast, with many stragglers behind, who
proceeded in the direction of Burslem, with the prisoner at
their head. He declined to make any defence, and the pri,
soner was committed to the next Stafford assizes for trial,
high treason.
for the very serious charge of

LIFE IN THE "BUSH" IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Emigrants to New South Wales, and those persons having
relatives or friends resident in that colony, will be able to
gather much useful information as to the manner of living
among the settlers in the " bush" by perusing the following
extract from a private letter : •

" Sauamsingarnin. Macquarie River, March, 1842.
"I have travelled from Molong to Wellington, formerly
a penal settlement for gentlemen convicts, who were there
made to work at the hoe or other laborious work, in breaking
up ground for the cultivation of Indian corn, tobacco, &C.
At present the missionary establishment is carried on there,
and there is a police office and a mounted police station.
Wellington is situated on the side of a valley, surrounded by
high mountains towering one above the other, and has a very
picturesque appearance when the country round is all green,
as it is at the present moment. There was a police magis-
trate at Wellington, but he bolted the other day for debt,
and was dismissed ; so this large district is left at' the mercy
of two or three just-asses of the peace, who bungle through
the business in the usual style—granting summonses to men
against their masters, and after dragging them 50 or even 80
miles, one justice only attends' who discovers that the
business requires two, and so consigns the poor devils to
gaol for a week or a fortnight until a sagacious colleague
arrives from pleasure or business.
" The missionary society was founded some years ago by
a society in London `for the conversion of the heathen in
foreign lands,' and is a most gross piece of humbug. It con-
sists of stores and stock and sheep stations, and an agricul-
tural farm. All the men employed upon these lands are
white, with the exception of one black fellow called Big
George,' who drives a bullock-team. A Mr. Porter is at
the head of secular affairs, and a Mr. Gunter, a German, takes
care of their souls—l mean the white men's—and very ill
they are taken care of. Ido not believe the mission has ever
converted a single black fellow, and, what's more, never
will. Au old one has occasionally been taught to read and
write, but they always return to their savage life. It is a
good thing for Porter and Gunter, for, though their salaries
are nominally low, they have the appropriation of large sums
annually, and the sheep and other stock. Of course, if they
really wished to convert the blacks, they would begin by em-
ploying them on their farms. My own opinion is that the
blacks in this part of the country are so addicted to their
own ways of living that it is quite impossible to convert
them. As long as you give them plenty to eat and drink,
with little to do, they will stop with you, and you are
cowboune buggaree feller,' an excellent fellow ; but refuse
them one meal and you are a b— rogue," their own ex-
pression. They are very useful in fetching your horses in a
morning, and to run the track of cattle, sheep, or a white
man lost in the bush. They are perfectly harmless (with the
exception of stealing your cattle) in the districts which have
been settled by white men any length of time ; but on the
Darling, where my station is, and in many other wild parts
of the colony, if they catch you alone they will settle you.
" I had a very narrow escape a few months ago. I was
just going to sit down to dinner. There were no blacks
about the place but one, whose duty it was to look after the
horses. A number of black fellows, however, it appeared,
were fishing in a lagoon about a mile and a half from the
hut. My black fellow came in, and I gave him his dinner.
He squatted himself down on the ground behind me, close
to a large nulla-nulla, or club, which I had noticed lying in
the hut for two or three days before. I was just sitting
down to my own dinner with the stockman and hut-keeper,
when two strange black fellows, with tomahawks in their
hands, came to the door of the hut, and at the same moment
I heard a whip crack, and up gallopped two stockmen of the
neighbourhood, armed to the teeth with muskets and pistols.
Good morning,' said I, ' sit down, and get something to
eat.'—' Stop,' said one of them, what are the black fel-
lows doing here ?'—' I don't know, indeed,' I replied.—
' Well,' cried he, you see that black fellow there behind
you was to rush on you with his nulla-nulla, and those other
two were to rush upon the stockman and hut-keeper and sink
their tomahawks in their heads. The rest of the men were
then to come up and take the rations and the blankets (I had
cattle-tailing at the time—that is, men to follow the cattle all
day, and put them in a stock-yard at night), take your head
of cattle, kill them, and turn the rest into the bush.' Before
he had done speaking, the black fellow in the hut addressed
the two at the door, who thereupon bolted off and scampered
away like kangaroos. I got into a tremendous rage, halt' mad
that the wretch whom I had been feeding should be the first to
turn against me. I seized a loaded pistol, backed him up in a
corner, and speaking to him in his own language, said,
Confess, you wretch, and tell me what you were going to
do ?' He then told me that the other black fellows had been
telling him to do it for a long time; that all the stockman
had told me was true, and that they were to have taken the
fire-arms out of the hut, and the ammunition, break them,
and throw them into the river, and, after dividing the spoil
and stripping us of our clothes, to set fire to the hut. Oh !
I was boiling with rage. I cocked the pistol, and was just
going to shoot him, when the other man pulled me back,
saying, For God's sake, sir, don't ;as sure as you shoot
that black fellow you'll be hung, for it will he given out that
there were five of us, and that you ought to have taken him
prisoner.' Getting more cool, I began to think that their
advice was not bad law, so we held a consultation and began
to think of the trouble of dragging the villain 500 miles, the
expense of prosecuting, and then what satisfaction ? The
government is all for the d—d rascals, and they get blan-
kets and tomahawks, are taught the Lord's Prayer, and re-
turn to their tribes like Tommy Borreenai, who murdered
poor Cunningham, the botanist. It is shameful, it is dis-
gusting. Our cattle are destroyed by wholesale. One set-
tler, about 50 miles from our station, has had 20 head of
prime young cattle, mostly two-year-old heifers, killed by
the blacks within the last six weeks; men have been mur-
dered in different parts of the colony, and yet if we shoot
one of the rascals caught in the fact, we are to hang, for-
sooth, because a parcel of old fools, who know nothing about
blacks, and never saw any except the half-starved miserable
creatures who are now and then seen in the streets of Syd-
ney, are to dictate to us unfortunate devils who are living far
away in wild districts, raising up wealth for the colony and
the mother country, with no protection but our own right
hands. Let the philanthropic old women who live at home
at ease live where I have done, and catch a black fellow out,
as I did, and see then if they would be against shooting the
vagaband off-hand. God forbid the blacks should be pro-
miscuously shot ; but whenever a murder is committed or
cattle slaughtered, the settlers in the district should be al-
lowed to form a jury of six or eight, with power to shoot the
blacks if they resisted, and try them when caught, and exe-
cute or otherwise punish them on the spot on which the
crime is committed.

" I forgot to mention that my affair was found out through
a black gin, or girl, who was living with one of the stockmen,
and she, in colonial slang, `came it,' and told him just in
time to allow him arm himself and gallop over to my hut with
hi 3 mate. The poor girl was shortly afterwards murdered in
the night. I love not yet found out the black fellow who
did it; but when I do, whether legal or illegal, his death-
warrant is sealed.

" On another occasion I had a very narrow escape. I was
about 40 miles from my station, looking for cattle runs with
our stockmen and a wild black-fellow we had picked up to
show us the way. We travelled all day, and at night he de-
coyed us to sleep within half-a-quarter of a mile of his own
tribe, about 200 in namber. They were encamped on the
side of a lagoon. No sooner were our horses turned out
than we heard them coming, and our black fellow did all he
could to attract their attention. We seized him, however,
and bound him, and placed one of the stockmen over him all
night with loaded firearms, whereby he was prevented from
communicating with his tribe, and we avoided the disagreeable
necessity of being murdered in cold blood, as well as of losing
our cattle.
"To return to the missionaries. They give blankets and
tomahawks to the black men once a year, and when a tribe
comes, I believe they give them a feed of beef and mutton.
They have a few black girls about the place, whom they have
taught household work, and reading and writing; but with
the exception of very odd instances the blacks will never stay
long with a white man. In fact, the old men will not let the
young men stop long with a white man; by young men I
means those that have no gins. As soon as a black fellow
gets a gin he must follow his tribe. Sometimes we can get a
young man to shepherd a flock of sheep for so many moons
for a ration and a suit of slop-clothing ; but as soon as he
gets the things he is almost sure to bolt, leaving your sheep
in the lurch, to get lost and scattered, and at the mercy of
native dogs.

" I have now with me in the Darling river a black fellow
whom I feed regularly and clothe, as far as an old shirt and
a pair of trowsers will go. His name is Tommy Lincoln,
and I can depend on him as well as any white man. He
tailed cattle for me for four months, and whenever he lost
any he would tell me that he would go that way again next
day and try to pick them up. If he wants to go to corrobora
(native dance,) or out in the bush with his tribe for any
time, he comes and asks my leave to stay so many nights,
and invariably returns at the time fixed. This black once
ran the trail of some cattle I had lost right through another
herd, and found them and brought them home. On another
occasion I sent him after a horse that had got away, and he
ran the track of it for 25 miles, and never stopped till he
found the horse dead at a water hole. I would trust my life
with this black fellow, and have done it scores of times, but
let him once get a gin, and I would not trust him more than
another.

" I like the country better than I did, because I have got
more used to it ; but any young man who has been brought
up as I have, gets completely disgusted. In every hut you
enter in the bush the conversation is generally on disgusting
and obscene topics. Drunkenness prevails to a dreadful extent
among all classes, for although in the bush outside the
boundaries the rum-keg only arrives once a-year, at shearing
time, yet then it is a signal for all hands to turn to and get
drunk as pigs. The women you meet in the bush are chiefly
convicts, and their manners are outrageously indecent. You
never bear a young man speak respectfully of a female; rnost
men in the colony think there is no such thing as a decent
virtuous woman. The natives (that is, the children of
whites born in the colony) are as bad as the convicts or go-
vernment women, as we call them. They are taught all
sorts of vice by these women as soon as they can walk.
The little daughters of respectable people in Sydney, when
sent out with the nurse, a prisoner, are often keeping watch'
while the servants are prostituting themselves. The natives
are generally fair-haired, tall, and very handsome. The
girls are marriageable at 14, and old and ugly at 25, if they
have been married and had two or three children.
" The lower order of corn stalks (in colonial phrase) are
noted as good horsemen, horse-stealers, and card-players.
But many of them are very respectable people in their own
way, fond of money, and take honest means to get it, as far
as honesty goes in the colony ; but that is not far, for you
are at perfect liberty to take a man in as much as you please;
anything dishonourable in connexion with a bargain is not
understood. If you can get hold of a new colonist, or new
' chum,' as they call them, and sell him stock at double the
current price, you are considered a keen fellow ; the act is
not considered discreditable, but, on the contrary, rather
praiseworthy,—' it only coming the new chum over him.'

,
" In union there is strength," as the toper said when he
poured the brandy into his water."—Punch.
TILE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY.
A Mechanic his labour will often discard
If the rate of his pay he dislikes;
But a clock—and its case is uncommonly hard—
Will continue to work, though it strikes.
The following anecdote used to be related by the late Mr.
Farril, for many years apothecary at the Bath General
Hospital:—The wife of a manufacturer of fire-works, living
hi Christmas-street, Bristol, some years back, one day com-
manded her servant to go up to the attic and bring some
arttclethat was needed. The girl returned, " Where have
you
thein barrel of black seed there." " Go," rejoined the
mistress, very coolly, " and bring the candle down, and take
drop no grease upon the seed." The maid had
stuck a lighted candle into a barrel of gunpowder! She
returned unhurt I—SherbornP
Journal.
PUNNING._There!s a time for all things—punning among
very unseasonable, and it
the number. perpetrated in a morning appears
art who ever commit such as only your eager novices in the
boy, letting off his squibs so"ism'
like an ardent
afterschool-
e breakfast, forestalling time
and anticipating the night. e
only
yp
ir
ne m
thea -
tore exhibition produce a fit of indigestion,h
person of the punster, but the victim at whom he has
" poked his fun." Puns and wax-candles shine the most
puns are " penis-
iarbremioduced after
brilliantly in the, evening. After-din
the semblance
at a fish dinner at
talic persuaders," and should invarigabil3
the nut-crackers. As for any being
Blackwell,it is a
wickedness, a malice prepense that would seem a
s incon-
ceivable as improbable; and to thrust such a heartle
of humanity punning
ortal
into the Thames, to become live bait for white bsari7
should consider as justifiable homicide.—Bentley's 7
Mis-
cellany.