BAD NEWS FROM THE PALMER DIGGINGS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 248, 17 February 1875, Page 2

BAD NEWS FROM THE PALMER DIGGINGS.

And on this, from the Northern Argus. On Sunday morning the s.s. ‘Blackbird’ arrived from Cooktown via Townsville. She brought 85 passengers, 13 of whom were tor Rockhampton, and most of the others for Brisbane and Sydney. Many showed unmistakable signs of broken health, being emaciated and pale, with hollow cheeks, and large lustreless eyes, betokening physical exhaustion. One passenger informed us that he did not believe there were 18 thoroughly healthy diggers in the vessel, and there are undoubtedly a large number of invalids—men who, in the course of from three to nine months, spent in digging orfossicking, have been nearly carried off with dysentery, or had their constitutions .shattered with fever and ague. These, with scurvy, arc the

pests which the diggers have to encounter, and from the attacks of which they too often succumb. Many, of course pass unscathed, but the majority, we are told, stiffer more or less; for the “ griffins” which guard the entrance to the gold regions do not take flight, as they very obligingly do, when surprised, in the story book, but scatter, with malarious breath the seekers for gold, and send them to take their last long sleep in the wilderness. Graves, it is said, are scattered all over the diggings, but more especially in the neighbourhood of camps, and on the road from Cooktown ; and a more melancholy sight.) it is scarcely possible to imagine, suggestive, as it is, of dissapointment, sorrow, and suffering, ending in death, the King of Terrors appearing in his sternest aspect, and home and friends —perhaps wife and family—all far away. To the unfortunate sufferers in such a case, Hope told a flattering tale— Delusive, vain, and hollow. And each fresh earth-mound in these wild regions, to say nothing of the living scarecrows confirm the statement.