Lost in the Bush.—A Heartrending Story

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 90, 13 January 1885, Page 3

Lost in the Bush.— A Heartrending Story

-*■ The Tumut correspondent of the | j Sydney Herald writes under date DeI cember 26 :— An inquest was held yester. ! day before Mr F. W. Vyner, coroner, concerning the death of Ann Lydia Cooper, an infant aged six months, who died of exposure and starvation in the bush. Her father was working miles away from home, and the mother left three children, the eldest eight years, and the youngest two years of age, in the hut and started with the baby, a boy six years of age, and a dog for the nearest neighbour, about four miles distant, through a terrible rough country, to get a messenger to go to Tumut for the sick child. The mother lost the track, and wandered about for five days ; the first night she was out in a heavy rainstorm, and on the second day her breast milk failed, so that she was obli-ved to kill the dot. to nourish the baby with its blood, while she and the boy ate a little of the flesh raw. On the third night the baby died for want of nourishment, and the mother and son camped without either fire or wood. On the fonrtb morning the mother carried the corpse ot the baby until the little boy fell down exhausted, and having no other hope of procuring help, she then left him near a waterhole to mind the dead child, whilst she endeavoured to find assistance, but for two days she wandered in the bush until striking a Chinamans's hut at Brodenchart, where every assistance was given her. Chinaman informed a European digger who lived several miles away, and they both started out to search for the boy. They camped on the mountains one night, and the next day they found the boy Freddy sitting on a rock, keeping the flies off the dead body of the baby. They gave the poor little fellow some food, after which the Chinaman carried the boy, and the digger, Taylor, brought the dead body several miles to the nearest hut, and subsequently they took the mother and boy home, after a week's .terrible privation, suffering, and exposure.