INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 786, 31 January 1871, Page 4

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

m_ The wreck of the Sarah, brig, has been sold for LU. The Ballan correspondent of the Bacchus Marsh Express states : — "On Wednesday, during the peregrinations of Sergeant Walsh in the Bullarook Forest, he found at the stump of a burnt tree a human skull, and a few charred bones. Hj is supposed that these remains are those of some stranger who perished in the bush fires of last summer, the sergeant having made every enquiry of the splitters and; charcoal-burners in the locality, who state' that there has not been any ono missing in the neighborhood, for whom they could not account, for the last four or five years. ; Besides the bonea, the only thing found was the ironwork of a double-*

bladed knife ; consequently, there can be no trace of the identity of the ill-fated individual, who may be classed as one of the number of " missing friends." The following will be found the most clear and succinct report yet received of the fearful tragedy at Orange :— " Police Station, Orange, Jan. 6, 1871.—Seniorsergeant Grainger reports, in reference to the murders committed at the Forest, that nothing important was elicted at the magisterial inquiry yesterday, and which is not yet concluded. The child is very nervous, and probably was asleep when the murderer came to the house. She states they were all in bed except Mrs Martin, who was in her own house, close to that of old Kane ; that the old man heard some noise outside, and went out to see what caused it (he was naked) ; he was shot through the breast at once, and fell outside the back door. The old woman then ran out and back immediately, crying, but did not speak. She bolted the door. Mrs Martin came from her house to the front door, and«asked to be let in. The old woman opened the door for her, and bolted it again. The j man came then to the front and broke it open. The old woman, Mrs Martin, and the little girl having gone into a bedroom—the old woman and girl on the bed and Mrs Martin under it — the man came in and at once quenched the candle. The old woman cried out, • Mercy ! mercy ! ' He came into the bedroom to +he bed, and shot the old woman through the breast. She was killed at once, the same ball, having gone through her body, striking the girl, who was behind her, in the left ear. He then took the girl out of the bed, and threw her with great violence on the ground. The girl stati-s he tired at her on the floor again, but missed her (there is no* a mark of his having done so). Mrs Martin was then crying out, ' Oh, Pat, dear ! dear, loving Pat ! what, kept you 1 Why did you not come home?' She cannot say whether he dragged his wife out, or whether she came from under the bed herself. She was shot through the abdomen, and went and lay down on a bed, in a front room. She called for water, and told the girl that he had gone — she did not say who, or mention any name. The girl gave her some milk to drink, and she lived for some time. Mrs Martin had on a dress and petticoat with steel in it, but' when the girl took her the drink she saw her naked, and her clothes burning a little way from her on the floor. She cannot explain how they took on fire. There was no light at the time burning, they werenot near the fireplace, and the fire had gone out. They must have been set fire to by the shot having been fired very close to her, and most likely taken off by herself. About daylight Martin came to the house. He came in at the frontdoor. The girl wrs beside her aunt and a young child in the front room. The first thing he did was to take the child in his arms, when he commenced to cry, and said, ' Poor Mary, you have no mammy now.' He never spoke to the girl, nor asked her any questions about the dreadful sight which must have been presented to his view, nor did he go into the bedroom where the old woman was lying dead, nor out to the back door to where the old man was lying, but went away at once, with the child in his arms, out by the front door. The little girl followed him on the way to his father's place, about a mile distant. He was talking to the child on the way, saying, 'You have got no mammy now,' and he also said, ' Blast the grog.' He then told the girl, before they got to his father's house, to run to another friend's house and tell them that they were all killed at Kane's. This is all the information the child gives, except that her aunt was expecting her husband home the night of the murder, and was waiting up for him."