CO129-584-14 Commutation of death sentences to life imprisonment. Includes 9 photographs depicting- [CN 3-42] Commutation of... 22-12-1939 - 17-9-1940 — Page 37

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terms. Not only had we quarrelled about the land and about

the fee paid to the priest, but that morning he went a

bit too far. When I told the children to go and get fire-

wood he said "My boy is not going out with your children."

Then we had another quarrel. Then the deceased man picked

up a chopper and came for me. He struck a blow which I parried with my left hand, and thereby got this wound on the palm of my left hand. With my right hand I caught him by the wrist. He had the weapon in his left

hand and

I disarmed him. Then his right hand was free and he struck

me a blow with his fist on the head."

I have to stop there, because the accused then gives

you the choice of two lines of defence.

Today he said that the blow was so terrific that "it stunned me and I fell to the ground, when I got up I saw the chopper lying there and I picked it up, but I have not the faintenst idea of what happened. I will take your word for it that my brother was very badly cut about the head.

It may I know he is dead, but I don't know who did it.

have been I and it may have been anyone else.

unconscious all through that time."

I was

That is one of ais stories. It may strike you as

strange that the possibility of sucu a state of complete coma and complete amnesia after a blow on the head with a fist to a man who had been at sea for so many years and whom you have seen here, should never have been put to Dr. Tal or Dr. Dawson Grove. The law in its wisdom is

We extremely chary of accepting innovations like that.

have no knowledge whatsoever whether it is possible for a blow from the fist to cause such a state of complete unconsciousness as to account for the possibility of a man