Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/192

 the law of Confucius, of which they know about as as much; nor has it much more in protecting them from retaliation, should the latter he unscrupulous enough to resort to it. It is in its present unmodified state practically inefficient to restrain aggressions on one side or the other. Even the very officers in command of the small police force which exists, must either allow the escape of persons guilty of the greatest crimes, or else, in order to punish them, violate that law which they are bound to administer;and the colonial government have to wink at that violation. As an example of this, I shall detail an occurrence, an account of which I had on the best authority, and of which I understand a report was sent to government at the time.

In the winter of 1843 the natives carried off a child, the daughter of a Mr. Abraham Ward, an inn keeper, living about fifty miles from Portland Bay. Ward, when it was missed, went out in search of it in company with some friends. After a search of something better than a day, they succeeded in coming up with one or two natives, one of whom told them that the child had been killed by a man of a neighbouring tribe. He described the child's having been carried off, its having been given in charge to one of the women, and that on its crying, this man whom he spoke of had killed it with his waddy, and showed how the women had buried it with their murnong sticks. This man also promised to bring the party to the place where this tribe were. Ward having represented these facts to the officer in command of the native police, a party