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From: "Daryl Crabtree" <>
Subject: [AUS-VIC-West] WEST WIMMERA MAIL
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 23:42:36 +1000


Hi All,
More from the West Wimmera Mail.

Thursday November 3rd 1887
An old resident of the Colac district, a
farmer residing at Ondit, named Ronald
Currie, was summoned to the police
court Geelong at the instance of an
orphan girl named Ada Tomlinson, aged
17 years, the charge being for leaving his
illegitimate child without support.
The defendant had in May, 1886, obtained
the complainant as an apprentice from the
Geelong Protestant Orphan Asylum, for a
term of five years' servitude. According to
the girl's story, improper and criminal conduct
on the part of the defendant took place soon
after she went to reside at the house of the
defendant and his wife, the result being that
a child was born. She admitted that a young
man named Job had been intimate with her,
and that he had criminally assaulted her in
November last. On the 19th ult. the girl swore
an information to the effect that the defendant
had assaulted her criminally, and shortly
afterwards the secretary of the Orphan Asylum,
writing under instruction from the committee,
communicated with Currie, urging him to come
to Geelong and make suitable arrangements for
the settlement of the painful case. The police
magistrate stated that the action of the asylum
authorities looked like an attempt to compound
a felony. Under all the circumstances of the case
the magistrate decided to dismiss the charge.

Regards,
Daryl
C.Q.

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