Another Hanging

The British Colonist
Nov 16, 1861

Yesterday "Dick," the Cowichan Indian who was convicted of murder, for having killed Squamish on the Burnside road, some months since, was sentenced, by Chief Justice Cameron, to be hanged on to-day fortnight. It is over a year since we have had a hanging here. The last--and we believe also the first victim of a judicial execution in this Colony--was poor Allache, a Chimsean Indian, for killing a colored man who had presumed to make himself too much at home in Allache's house. Before the man was hanged, there was no person to speak a word in his behalf (save on the score of the impropriety of capital punishment generally), but after the judicial halter had been tightened about the poor fellow's neck to such an extent as to dislocate the vertebrae and deprive him of life, the philanthropists of the city suddenly aroused themselves and discovered that the victim was a much-abused individual and should not have suffered death at all. We hope we shall not have a repetition of that affair on this occasion. If the man does not deserve to die, for the sake of humanity and the credit of justice, let the true facts be ascertained before it is too late. When the sentence of death was being passed upon him, Dick looked quite amused--his dusky countenance was illumined by a broad grin during the whole time occupied with the remarks of the Judge, and he seemed to entertain about as much fear of the end of a rope with a noose to it as he would of a hot dinner.