THE SYDNEY MURDERS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1160, 17 April 1872, Page 4

THE SYDNEY MURDERS.

Since the days of Burke and Hare {here has probably not been told a more horrible tale of murder than* that related by the Sydney press. Two men, Nicholla aud Lester, one of them & mere lad, appear to have deliberately entered into partnership as robbers and assassins. Scarcely belonging to the recognised criminal class, because their antecedents prove them to be fairly educated and respectably connected, the criminal instinct was yet strong anoiigh in them to silence all' scruples of conscience. The plan they adopted to entrap their victims was the inseriion of an advertisement in the newspapers for a clerk or storeraan. "When the applicants appeared they represented that their place of business was up country ; they enquired whether an advance of salary was required, and if the reply was in the negative, they evinced a friendly interest in the position of their future employS, and generally managed to worm out of him what available means he was possessed of. A few pounds only, as in poor Walker's case, was sufficient to tempt their cupidity. They engaged* the man, met him at the wharf, and departed apparently for their destination up the Parramatta River. On the way they knocked him' on the head with a life-pre-server, rifled his pockets, and then threw the inanimate but not dead body, bound hand and foot, overboard. Thus they assassinated and robbed the steward of the Rosario, and poor Walker, formerly a local preacher on the gold fields of this Colony. The evidence on Walker's body fully brought home the crime to Nicholls and Leater, and when they left the court house a large body of police was necessary to prevent the excited populace taking summary vengeance upon them. It is impossible at present to determine the extent io which these wretches have carried out their system of wholesale assaasinatipn, but the Sydney police have exhibited so far a praiseworthy smartness in tracking the fellows, and there is little! doubt that fresh horrors will be revealed before Nioholls and Lester are brought to trial for the two murders they at present staiid charged with committing.