Vol. XXIX., No. 3. 



SEP 1 KMliER I. 1906. 



The Rev 



EVIEWS 



ASIA. 



EQi;iT.'VBtij HVir^rn^^'G. melbovri-'E. 



THE HISTORY OF THE MONTH. 



A Return 



to the 



Barbaric. 



Melbourne, August 9th. 



On the night of July 14th the whok- 

 community held its bivath, appallt-d. 

 An act of fiendish atrocity was com- 

 mitted by a gang of human wolves, 

 in the broad light of day, on the flat at Flemington. 

 A young fellow named McLeod, who had been 

 making a book on the races, but who, evidently not 

 up to his work, had made it carelessly and wrongly, 

 found himself unable to .pay his debts. He, how- 

 ever, returned the money which had been " laid " 

 with him by the " backers," endorsing the tickets 

 with a promise to pay the rest later. But menacing 

 words induced him to beat a retreat, which developed 

 into a run. He w^as followed by a pack, of men 

 who swarmed over him, and when the police ar- 

 rived, McLeod was dead. >The coroner's verdict 

 was: — ^"That on the 14th July, 1906, at the Flem- 

 ington Racecourse, Donald Jno. McLeod died from 

 sufl'ocation due to pressure upon, or laceration of the 

 spinal cord, due to dislocation of the neck close to 

 the head, following upon a fall upon the ground. 

 There is no evidence to determine how the disloca 

 tion was caused, or whether the fall was due to th<' 

 act of anv other person." The mother of McLeod 

 was so overcomp that in three or four days after thi- 

 trasredv she became an inmate of an insane asylum. 



An 



Inconclusive 



Verdict. 



The verdict seems woefullv incon- 

 (■lusi\-e in, face #' the aw-ful 

 tragedv. The man was slaughter- 

 ed, brutally and cruelly, with- 

 out a doubt. His own part in it canii.ot 

 be justified, but even that does nnt warraM 

 the awful crime that followed it. Tt ought 

 to sting the Government into stern action. Its plain 

 duty at this juncture is to pass legislation which 

 will make a rep<-tition of this gruesome thing an 

 impossibility. The people cannot pass laws ; but 

 the Government, in the present condition of public 

 opinion, can put through legislation of the most 

 drastic character. _But if it does not, there is onr 

 thing the people can do, and that is, refuse to re- 

 elect the men who show thcm.seUes to be so car<- 



Sfilh"urne Punch.} 



The Fiend Has Another Victirr. 



.\USTRALL\: "This is my Prankenstein monster; 

 the time has come for the use of the gnu." 



and now 



less of the best interests of the community. The 

 tragedy shows in a lurid light the kind of inhuman 

 that the present conditions of society produce, con- 

 ditions that will never be altered so long as our 

 laws give such facilities for the growth of vice. The 

 duty of Parliament is clear. Let it curtail the facili- 

 tie.s, and make it difficult for men tO' do wrong. 



A 



Huge 

 Blunder. 



Innim 



I.''-i^ 



The tragedy w'as responsible for one 

 of the most stupendous farces ever 

 enacted in any Parliament. It 

 was carried through in the Vic- 

 Intive .Assemblv on (he night of Jnlv ^TSt. 



