FEARFUL GRIMES IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 74, 3 April 1877, Page 3

FEARFUL GRIMES IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

For some time past we Cooktown Herald have been inundated with the reports of depredations being committed —north, east, south, and west, by those bloodthirsty savages, the "poorblacks." Drays have been stuck up, and teamsters obliged to fly, women hunted, bullocks speared, and the latest atrocious act is the committal of the most bloodthirsty double murder that it has been our lot to chronicle since Cooktown Avas first settled, and God knows, there have been enough. But a short time back, say the first week in December, two packers, named Hugh and Donald Macquarie, who for the last two years have been packers between Cooktown and Maytown, started from Gray and Co.'s stores with their pack-team of splendid animals, representing a value, with their loading, of over £1000. The Macquaries take the " Hell's Gate" track, and nothing more is heard of them till a report is received on Wednesday last from John Rogan, who states as follows : —" Normandy, January 30. As I was travelling from Maytown to Cooktown on the Hell's Gate track on Sunday last, about three miles from the latter place, from what I saw, the niggers had just completed the slaughter of two horses, having , just removed one and a portion of the other. Some papers and books were scattered about, which I picked

up for the purpose of identification. They bore the names of Hugh Macquarie, and were invoices, letters, &c, from Gray and Co., and several others. There was a pack saddle on the remaining horse, but I did not remove it. but travelled with all speed to the Laura, thinking to pu 1 ! the men belonging to , the slaughtered horse, and on my way saw fresh tracks on the road. Soon after I picked up six horses, comprising four pack, one saddle, and one riding horse. I searched about for signs of a fresh outrage, but did not lind any, and finally reached the Laura late that night. The horses I picked up travelled down without being driven, giving evident signs of knowing the track well. I brought four horses down, one knocked up at the Laura, and another broke his leg and I shot him on the track." Since this straightforward report has been received, confirmation of the diabolical outrage has been afforded by another packer, who states that near where Rogan first saw the slaughtered horses at Hell's Gate, he found tracks of bleeding bodies having been dragged off the road into the bush, and also picked up more papers bearing the names of Hugh and Donald Macquarie, which have also been handed over to the police. The escort which arrived in tewn on Wednesday, under Mr. Fitzgerald, furnishes fresh reports of outrages everywhere, horses lying about disgustingly mutilated on the Hell's Gate track, packs strewn everywhere, rations scattered to the winds, and, for all we know, the skeletons of their owners bleaching around camps where the bloodthirsty savages have indulged in their cannibalistic feats.