[updated 4 Jan 2002]
The Cape Tragedy
The following interesting particulars as to the career of George Goodwin Crouch SMITH are supplied by the Merino correspondent of the Hamilton Spectator :--- "What changes time brings about strikes one forcibly upon reading of the late tragedy in South Africa and remembering the perpetrator many years ago as a curly-headed, innocent and attractive child. Such was George Goodwin Crouch SMITH when I knew him, ere he launched out into the world . He was born about a quarter of a mile out of this township somewhere in the sixties, being a son of George SMITH known generally as "BOMBAY SMITH,"who was many years secretary of the Glenelg shire council. Goodwin was the youngest of eleven, four girls and seven boys. The different walks of life pursued by each of the family after leaving home show a love of novelty and romance. One son ran away to sea and found his way to India (the early home of his parents), and after many vicissitudes is now well off in a lucrative situation. Another son astonished the district a few years ago with a new mode of breaking in horses, charging a guinea a lesson and styling himself Professor Train. This too was a chequered career, and it will be remembered that when wanted by the police to answer certain charges he became non est until the matter had blown over, his brother meanwhile being consigned to a sphere where work was plentiful and wages low for three years, but for good behaviour was released after two years service. After that it seems, he must have emigrated to Africa and the recent sensational telegrams show the unenviable notoriety he has at last attained.
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