YESTERDAYS NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 3120, 18 February 1873, Page 3

YESTERDAYS NEWS.

TRAGEDIES AT THE PEARL FISHERIES OF 'WESTERN AUSTRALIA. I'rom Boehourne, in extreme north of the Colony,' we hare accounts of two tragical occurrence*. On the inst M three aborinals >vere placed on trial, charged with the murder of Mr Walter Ledger. The wurder took place og board a pewl|n| cutter

named the Hampton, and there seems to have been no special provocation, for the blackfellows merely stated that they were “sulky” because a black man had been killed by a white man some time before. The master of the Hampton bad been on an island obtaining turtles, and was in his boat sculling back to the Hampton, when he heard a crash on board of her, and looking up, saw the native, Dugald, striking Ledger on the bead with an axe. After the first blow, Ledger ffired bis revolver, breaking Dugald”s arm. Ledger lingered for a fortnight and then died, no surgical aid being obtainable in that remote place. Two of the natives received sentence of death, which was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life.

Another tragical event is reported from the same locality, and serves to show with what singular and culpable rashness the pearlers trust themselves amongst men who have a world-wide reputation for treachery and ferocity. Two young men, Mr Passey and Mr Roe, brought over from Coepang to the nor h-west coast 37 Malay divers, to assist them in the pearl fishery and in collecting and curing the trepang or sea-slug. Thirty of these were Macassar men, good sailors and fair divers. Their vessel, the Gift, was a schooner of 30 tons, and besides the 37 Malays there were in all six whites on board. It is scarcely credible that these foolhardy young fellows, on a distant part of the coast, with a mob of half-wild Malays on board, actually kept no watch, and the wonder is that anyone of them remains alive to tell the story. The Malays waited their opportunity, and then rising in the night, murdered one white, wounded the others, and, taking possession of the schooner, sailed off with her to their own country.