A Romance of the Telegraph Line
- AN ETERNAL FAREWELL. A book lias just been published in London, entitled "Australian Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil. By Howard Willoughby, of the Melbourne Argus." The following story is told :— At the Barrow Creek station a party of the employees were surprised in 1875 by the blacks, when they had left the building to indulge in a bathe. They had to run for their lives through a volley of spear.= to regain the shelter of their loopholed home. Mr Stapleton and a line repairer were mortally wounded and two others were very badly hurt. Mr Stapleton was found to be sinking rapidly. The news was flashed to Adelaide. In one room of the city stood the doctor and Mrs Stapleton listening to the " click click" of the messages : a thousand miles away in the desert, in a lonely hut beleagured by the blacks, lay the dying man, with an instrument brought to his "bedside. He received the doctor's message that his case was hopeless. He heard his wife's adieux, and he telegraphed an eternal farewell. It is easy to believe that the affecting spectacle moved those around the group in Adelaide to tears.
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Bibliographic details
Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 77, 4 January 1887, Page 4
Word Count
200A Romance of the Telegraph Line Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 77, 4 January 1887, Page 4
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