382 CRIMES AGAINST EUROPEANS. 
natives I ever met with, was a deaf and dumb 
youth at the Wimmera. From this poor boy, I 
could more readily and intelligibly obtain by 
signs a description of the country, its character, and 
localities, than from any native I ever met with, 
whose language I was at the time quite unac- 
quainted with. 
The blind, or the infirm, are generally well 
treated, and taken care of when young, but as soon 
as they advance in years, or become an impediment 
to the movements of the tribe, they are abandoned 
at once by their people, and left to perish. 
The crimes committed by the natives against 
Europeans do not bear any proportion, either nu- 
merically, or in magnitude, to their number, as a 
people, and the circumstances of their position. 
When we consider the low state of morals, or rather, 
the absence of all moral feeling upon their part, the 
little restraint that is placed upon their community, 
by either individual authority, or public opinion, 
the injuries they are smarting under, and the 
aggressions they receive, it cannot but be admitted 
that they are neither an ill disposed, nor a very vin- 
dictive people. The following are the returns of 
the convictions of natives in South Australia for the 
years 1842 and 1843, viz. : — 
