The Argus at KellyGang 9/6/1874
The services of Mr Hodges, of Castlemaine, chief Chinese interpreter, were placed at the disposal of the police in the investigation into the circumstances attending the death of Ah Fook, the Chinaman supposed to have been murdered at the Woolshed, near Beechworth. The body of this Chinaman was found upon May 2, in the bush near the old police camp at Woolshed, and from the wounds inflicted upon the body there could be no doubt that the man had come to his death by violent means. At the inquest held upon May 10, before Mr Dobbyn, deputy coroner, a verdict was returned of wilful murder against some person unknown. Mr Hodges, who possesses considerable acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Chinese, has been engaged for some time in investigating this case, and he has recently sent into the Crown Law department a very voluminous report upon the subject.
He arrives at the conclusion that the deceased committed suicide, and instances a number of facts in support of that view. From his report it appears that the deceased was one of a party of sixteen, employed in working a sluicing claim which they had purchased from some Europeans for £80. The claim did not turn out a successful one, and the party were heavily in debt to the storekeepers. On the 17th April last a quarrel took place between Ah Fook and Ah Oun, another of the party, and Ah Oun was so severely injured that he had to be taken to the Beechworth Hospital. Ah Fook did not receive any serious hurt, but he took to his bed after the quarrel, and appeared to be in a very despondent state of mind. According to the Chinese custom, he was bound to give pecuniary compensation to Ah Oun for the injuries ho had inflicted, and this fact, coupled with his general poverty, weighed heavily upon him.
His temperament was described as passionate, and he had previously threatened to commit suicide. The suicidal tendency apparently became more developed after the quarrel, and when he disappeared, his countrymen who were working with him said, in answer to inquiries, that he would probably be found in the bush, meaning that he had committed suicide. An oracle or a prophecy which he had received, threatening future misfortune, is also sup- posed to have had some effect on him. The body of the deceased was found in a gully about a mile and a half from the Chinese camp, and from the surrounding circumstances, Mr. Hodges judged that the Chinaman first inflicted the wound upon the back of his neck, when leaning upon a huge rock, upon which there were signs of blood, that then he stabbed himself in the abdomen, and in other parts. Mr Hodges, after full inquiry, arrives at the conclusion that suicide is the most probable explanation of the man's death.
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