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Rh In conclusion, let me remark that "Outis" is unfair when he instances the conduct of the pure-minded but eccentric lady who would not let a gentleman within her doors because he was a Native Police officer, as a type of the feeling of the more refined residents of the bush. "Outis" must know well that go where you will in the bush, amongst high or low, as a rule there is no guest more welcome or more honored than the Native Police officer. June 16. —Queenslander, July 17, 1880.

have received a great number of letters from all parts of the country treating this subject from very different points of view. While anxious, on the one hand, to suppress nothing bearing on the point, and to allow the fullest discussion on the subject, we are compelled to have some regard to the amount of space occupied. A publication of the letters in full would occupy pages required for other matter, and we therefore propose to give the gist of each letter, as fairly as possible, in the briefest compass.

A correspondent, writing over the signature "Piebald," objects entirely to the kind of force we propose for the regulation of the natives. He objects that in the North the whole police force of the country would have to be employed looking after black to the neglect of white offenders, and asserts that they could not possibly get evidence of what was done by them. Having had fifteen years' experience of Native Police officers, he declares them to be "upright gentlemen," and "the most of them would have scorned to have done the deeds you attributed to them." He thinks we should leave the mater "to work its own end, as it surely will do."

Mr. Isaac Watson, writing from Normanton, asserts that the aborigines in the Gulf country are generally inclined to be peaceful, and complain that the police are always "rounding them up and shooting them for the purpose of kidnapping gins and little boys and making them travel to some stations, or else to the township of Normanton, where they are made to work and slave against their will. If any attempt is made to escape they are either shot in the bush by the Native Police or else brought in and punished accordingly." He suggests that the Imperial Act passed to prevent kidnapping in the Pacific might be used to prevent and punish these practices.

A correspondent, writing over the signature "Never Never Country," from the West, states that he was a sergeant of police in 1867-8-9, '70, and '71. He was in charge of stations on the Paroo, Bulloo, and Warrego rivers, and asserts that it was a "common thing" for Native Police officers in the first-named year to shoot and burn wild blacks. He was ordered to arrest an officer for shooting a civilised black; but he asserts that the case was hushed up, the officer dismissed from the force and promoted to a better billet. He also refers to Queenslander of 1869 and 1870, wherein it is related that Sub-inspector Gilmour, on an exploring trip, expended 500 ball cartridges in three or four months.

A correspondent, writing over the signature "Calpo," from the West, asserts that the incidents narrated in the Queenslander are without foundation, or grossly exaggerated. Having bad eighteen years' experience of the Native Police system, he declares that, although instances of undue punishment have occurred, "as a rule, the Native Police officer is not the bloodthirsty scoundrel you represent him to be." Dispersing he declares to be a revolting duty to most officers. He believes that by making the force mainly a white one atrocities will not be prevented, and that the protection supposed to be afforded by one white man informing against the other is a fallacy. It did not, he asserts, stop the indiscriminate shooting of man, women, and children after the Wills murder by parties of whites. Nor did it stop similar conduct by parties of diggers, accompanied by Government officials, at Battle Creek. The very class of men we propose would, he declares, be the most severe; and he states that he has seen things done by parties of station hands going out after a murder by the blacks that no police officer would allow. The idea of such officers shooting blacks "for sport" is simply ridiculous. Finally, he asserts that in the outside districts of South Australia there are two wild blacks shot for one in Queensland, and "scenes have been enacted sub rosâ in the out-lying districts of that colony before which the most severe dispersals by our Native Police pale to insignificance."

A correspondent, writing over the signature "J.W.," from Winton, doubts the cruelties attributed to the Native Police. He says "they have a duty to perform, and as a rule they do it well, and as humanely as possible. It is only where the