MURDER BY THE BLACKS IN QUEENSLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5264, 6 February 1878, Page 3

MURDER BY THE BLACKS IN QUEENSLAND.

A correspondent of the Brisbane Courier writes from Carpentaria under date December 20 ;—“A horrible murder bv the black- has just been reported. The unfortunate victim, Mr. William Batten, was travelling with horses from the Calvert River, where, with his partner, Mr. De Lautour, he had been mustering horses. The party, consisting of the abovenamed gentleman, a stockman, and a black boy, separated at Settlement Creek, about, fifty miles west of the Nicholson .River; Mr. Batten and the stockman Aitken pushing on for Normauton with about sixty head of horses, while Mr. De Lautour and the black boy remained behind. The two former reached the Nicholson River at daylight.on the 2nd instant, having travelled all night. On their arrival, they found a large number of blacks, amongst whom Mr. Batten distributed rations ' and several other small articles. The blacks then crossed the river, down which Aitken went about three or four hundred yards to fish. After fishing for about an hour, he heard Mr. Batten cry out, and running towards him, saw him on the ground, and six or seven blacks beating him over the head with nullah-nullahs. Aitken fired a shot from a small Deringer that he fortunately had in his heit, which had the effect of bringing four of the blacks towards himself, and his next shot telling on one of his assailants, they all retired, after throwing their nullah-nullahs at him, happily without effect. He found poor Batten with his skull beaten in, just alive, but insensible. The poor fellow continued to breathe for an hour or two, and when all was over, Aitken rolled him up in his blankets, and to save his own life had to start away for Normanton, which he reached after a lonely ride of eight days. From the fad that Mr. Batten's Snider carbine and revolver, though close to where he was lying, were untouched, it Is supposed that he must have gone to sleep, aud thus fell an easy victim to the treacherous savages whom a little while before he had fed from his scanty stock of rations. The scene of the murder ‘is only about thirty-five or forty miles from the Messrs. Watson’s station on the Gregory, from which station it is stated the murderers had been driven for spearing cattle."