he speaks of the manner in which they regard forcible and violent assaults on their women. It is necessary to be explicit on this point or the real bearing of some of the incidents we have narrated will be lost. It is true that the aboriginal women have no sense of chastity according to our meaning of the word, and it is equally true that the aboriginal men will offer their women, not exactly to chance strangers, but to visitors whom they are anxious to please. Hiring out women for purposes of prostitution is one of the civilised customs the blacks learn from white Christians. But this custom of regarding women as the property of men, to be given or lent to a friend or an honored guest, is one that has been at some time or other prevalent amongst almost every people in the world, and people who were mentally and morally far above our wretched savages. It was not unknown to the ancient Greeks, and it was common in many of the semi-civilised countries of Asia; but at no time did this custom prevent the forcible abduction of a woman being regarded as the most exasperating insult one man or one tribe could offer to another. And it is so with the blacks. If anyone will take the trouble to enquire concerning the cause of most of their bitterest tribal quarrels, he will find they generally arise from the forcible abduction of women. It is a point of honor with a black man to seize a woman belonging to his enemies, but it is equally a point of honor with the latter to revenge the insult, if possible, with the blood of the offender, The custom, therefore, that prevails among the black police of taking gins from the tribes by force—or threats of force—accompanied, as the action often is, by every aggravation and insult possible, rankles deeply in the minds of the aborigines. They are subjected to the direst indignity which they as individuals or a tribe can suffer, and are spurred on to revenge themselves on some unprotected white—in their eyes a member of the tribe that injured them. Individuals among the settlers occasionally do the same thing, and create much bad blood. The intercourse which takes place between the races after the blacks are "in" on the stations is quite a different matter. It is simply prostitution—a particularly loathsome form of the vice, but having no bearing on the question of which we are treating.
In conclusion, we desire to point out that a force such as we have described in previous articles could regulate evils like these. In newly occupied districts, when the first stage had passed, and, the blacks, recognising the impossibility of resisting white man's weapons, were inclined to submit to the presence of settlers, it would be necessary to watch vigilantly that no unnecessary provocation were given them. Having had, as would probably be the case, unmistakable proof of the power of the police to punish them, it would be necessary in the next place to induce them to rely on the police for protection against injury. We are assuming that the body to be substituted for the present one will be legalised by special enactment. The same law could contain a short and simple code, authorising a certain scale of punishments for white men molesting the blacks. It would be evidently absurd to bring all these offences under the common law, and anything short of homicide might be punished by such fines and short terms of imprisonment as a bench of magistrates could inflict. But in all cases the fine or a part of it should be paid to the injured individual or tribe, in the form of blankets, tomahawks, flour, or some article they could appreciate. Our correspondent, "North Gregory," is quite right in
