Contempt Worse Than Crime

1895

An Australian Judge and How He Maintained the Dignity of His Court.

The stories of early Australian judges are numerous and incredible. The following incident, which is vouched for as a fact, is of a judge who had a very lofty idea of his own legal capacity and was, at the same time, anxious to sustain the dignity of his court. A "shooting case" came before him. There was no direct evidence as to the perpetrator of the murder, but the individual arrested was well known and indeed confessed the deed.

When brought into court, the judge cautioned the prisoner that he must remember his rights as a free citizen, and that, above all things, he must not interrupt the proceedings of the court. After this friendly warning the judge proceeded to state that he (the prisoner) was accused of having on such a date shot the deceased.

Upon this the prisoner broke in, "Well, and so I did."

The judge was annoyed at the interruption.

"Hold your tongue, sir!" he exclaimed. "Haven't I told you not to commit yourself nor interrupt me? I shall commit you for contempt of court if you do so again!" he added sternly.

He then repeated the accusation, upon which the prisoner broke in:

"I have told ye afore that I killed" —

The judge's indignation was intense at this second interruption, and he demanded, "Mr. Sheriff, what is your evidence?"

I have nothing but circumstantial evidence, your honor, and the prisoner's own confession."

"Then," said the judge, "I discharge the prisoner on this accusation, but commit him for contempt of court." — Pittsburg Dispatch.

Meant to Have His Life

1910

Vicious Attack by Australian Natives on Trespassers in Their Country

Men who venture into the interior of northern Australia are likely to meet with adventures at the hands of hostile natives. Here is a matter-of-fact yarn concerning one James Runine McPherson, engaged in pearl-shelling operations:

On July 18 he was fishing for trepang (sea cucumber or sea slug) at the mouth of the Liverpool river. He landed in a dingey on the east bank of the river, where a bush smokehouse for the curing of trepang had been erected. He dispatched a Malay with canoes and working natives to gather trepang around a distant point, while two natives who paddled the dingey went off to the lugger, which was anchored more than a mile out, with a load of fresh water. He remained at the smokehouse with three old Junction Bay natives, who assisted him in manipulating the trepang. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, feeling tired, he was reclining on the floor of the smokehouse, with a rifle across his knees, when he was startled by the loud swishing sound of several spears passing through the bough-covered enclosure.

McPherson immediately rushed out and saw seven or eight Liverpool river natives at the back of the smokehouse with spears shipped and with murder in their faces. Another shower of spears fell around him and he retired toward the water's edge and as he dodged one another long-barbed spear struck him in the hip. He felt no more, he says, than a burning twinge from the wound at the moment and instantly broke it off with his hand, leaving about eight inches of the barbed point buried in the fleshy part of his hip, The natives at this time were about forty yards away, having never shifted from their first point of attack near some thick bushes.

The man who had wounded McPherson was in the act of throwing another spear when McPherson shot and hit him. He then emptied his revolver at his assailants, who immediately disappeared in the adjacent scrub. Hearing shots, the two Daly river natives came hurrying ashore with the dingey, and conveyed McPherson to his boat, where he subsequently succeeded himself in tearing the barbed spearhead from the wound. Several barbs shaped like fishhooks were broken off in the process and remained in the wound.

The following day McPherson shifted his trepang gear and crew to another part of the coast and started for Palmerston to report the matter and have the wound attended to.

A Deadly Boomerang, Made and Thrown With Precision

1898

He Learned the Secret From the Natives of Australia

Civilized people, especially of the English speaking races, pride themselves upon their discoveries in electricity with which they now operate the guns of great ships of war, and they point with fear and trembling as well as satisfaction to the perfection in all sorts of dynamite bombs and explosives which they may, on occasion, use to kill people by the hundreds; but with all their cleverness, says the Detroit Free Press, they have never learned to make what a savage can fashion out of a crooked stick. It has been stated that there is nothing made of wood which a Yankee boy cannot copy with the aid of his jackknife, but the man who said that had probably never heard of a boomerang.

Horace Baker of New York, who spent several years in Australia, and went "boomerang crazy," is said to be the first white man who ever made boomerangs that would "go," and he learned to make them by almost living with the savages and watching them as they sat whittling away at a piece of wood with their crude stone hatchets and sharp shells.

Besides those which he has made himself, Mr. Baker has the largest collection of real Australian black man's boomerangs in this country. There are almost a hundred of them, and a queer lot they are. Some of them are haggled as if the savage had used his teeth to make them, yet as true to the boomerang principle as the perfectly carved specimens which decorate his walls. He keeps them hung up in clusters as some men have their guns and pistols arranged with a view to proud display before their friends. A few of these date away back to the time when Captain Cook landed on the coast of Australia.

"Why is it so difficult to make a boomerang?" said this connoisseur of the crooked stick. "Well, because it is so delicately balanced that the least divergence from the proper angle will alter its course in the air and prevent the perfect revolution which is necessary to its flight. When correctly made, a boomerang should balance exactly on a knife blade held at its centre, if it doesn't balance, some more whittling must be done on the heavy end. That seems easy enough — to whittle a piece of curved wood into a flat shape — so that the ends balance exactly — and if that were all there is to it, any boy could make one. The hard part of it is to cut the edges in such a way that they will strike the air at a certain angle in one part of the curve, and at another in another part, and so on until every line of both edges contributes to the perfect revolution of the weapon. Then, when it is whirled, it has two motions, the rotary one, which is a result of its shape, and the forward one, given it in the throwing. It's a pity that the baseball players cannot 'get onto' those black fellows' 'curves.' A pitcher who could do it would make his fortune.

"The quality of wood used has a great deal to do with the excellence of a boomerang. The Australian brave will tramp miles to find a branch of the right shape, and a wood of the proper density. Gnarled trees are at a premium there, and the heaviest wood is the best. Our lignum vitae corresponds the nearest to the tree they like best. The piece for the boomerang is usually cut where a branch curves out from the tree trunk, for this is the most natural crook in the tree's formation.

"In throwing a boomerang, the savage holds it by one end over his right shoulder, his body turned to the right, then without straightening the arm he whirls the body back to front position, bringing the weapon with the arm still bent, with it, then suddenly lets go, straightening the arm at the elbow as he does so. This adds the force of the whole body to the momentum of the weapon, instead of depending entirely upon that of the arm. It will go whirling around, keeping straight ahead for a certain distance then gradually swerve to the left and at last return to the thrower.

"When a savage wants to kill or disable a kangaroo, he throws it so that it will strike the ground at a stated distance from him and then begin turning somersaults until it reaches the kangaroo, striking him even then with such force as to break a leg or kill him, if it strikes on the head.

"Or suppose he sees a flock of ducks swimming about on the river. He creeps up softly behind a clump of trees, throws his boomerang swirling over the tree tops in a curved line which he can calculate as well as a civilized gunner sights a straight one, and down comes the flying stick among the ducks flopping like a live thing, and killing or disabling everything within reach of its wooden wings. It really looks very much like a bird in its flight through the air.

"The savages have many different varieties of these weapons. The average length is twenty-four or twenty-six inches. Such as these are used in hunting birds, rabbits and other small game, and none of them weighs over three-quarters of a pound. There are immense hunting and war weapons which are as much as three feet long, but they are rarely used, and nobody has sufficient strength to throw them so that they will return."

Australian Sheepdogs Are Marvels at Their Work

1915

Have Been Brought to a High Degree of Intelligence

Sheepdog trials may be considered a national pastime if not a national sport in Australia. There is an annual agricultural show in every town and village in the pastoral parts. There are general competitions on the lines of the American county and state fairs. There are horse races, buck jumping, shearing, log chopping, and other strenuous competitions.

But not one of these excites more interest than the sheepdog trials; and in these tests Australians have set the example of certain of the most serious tasks that a man and a dog may be asked to accomplish with three strange sheep — sheep that they had never previously met until they had a moment before been turned out from three separate pens to be packed or gathered together by the dog.

It was the Australians who first put forward, and they still maintain it, the maltese cross test. The eight six-foot hurdles are set in the shape of a maltese cross. The passages are of a width that will permit only one sheep to pass through at a time. The animals have to be driven north and south and east and west, all the passes being open at the time. The skill and patience of the dog are here tried to the utmost, and there can be little wonder there is a gasp of satisfaction and a cheer of joy when the sheep have been successfully driven through these narrow ways.

The Australian sheepdogs are the smallest in use in the world, but are quick and lively in their work. It is no wonder that the Australian gives much thought for his dogs, for it goes without saying that the work of the sheep station could not be accomplished without them. In ordinary cases it is reckoned that one dog can do the work of half a dozen men; in many instances a dog is superior to 50 humans; and where there are such vast flocks of nimble sheep, such as the merinos in Australia are, it would be impossible without the dogs to round them up so that they may be examined, counted, and duly looked over.