CAFFREY, THE MURDERER. Reported Appearance in Victoria. (REUTER'S TELEGRAM) Melbourne, August 16.

Te Aroha News, Issue 166, 21 August 1886, Page 3 (Supplement)

CAFFREY, THE MURDERER. Reported Appearance in Victoria. (REUTERS TELEGRAM ) Melbourne, August 16.

It ia believed that Caffrey, the Great Barrier Isiand murderer, has been seen in Gippsland, and the police are now engaged in searching that district.

Caffrey Recognised in a Train. The following ia from the "Sydney Morning Herald" :—": — " The ' Government Gazette ' notifies that a man answering the description of John Caffrey, the alleged murderer of Robert Taylor, at New Zealand, on June 19th, and who escaped in Ihe cutter Sovereign of the Seas, has been seen travelling in the train betwoen Warragul and Yarragong, Gippsland.

A Strange Cutter Sighted. Recent Sydney papers contained a shipping telegram to the effect that the signalman at Port Macquarie, on the coast of New South \^ales, had reported a " straDge cutter 5 ' in sight, evidently bound to the northward. The unusual circumstance of a cutter's movements being reported with such precision would seem to indicate that there was something suspicious about the one in question. Supposing it to have been the Sovereign of the Seas, there is nothing improbable in Caffrey now turning up in Gippsland, as the cutter's course might have been changed.

Is the Sovereign of the Seas Wrecked ? Many people hold the opinion that the cutter in which Caffrey and Perm took their flight after the tragedy afc Great Barrier Island could not have lived through the succession of eevere storms that have since swept the seas in the neighbourhood of New Zealand and Australia. The only news of a wreck that would correspond with that of the Sovereign of the Seas is supplied by a .New South Wales paper, which states that " a vessel of about 60 tons was passed bottom up by the three-masted schooner Pendle Hill, on 14th July, while OYI her way from Cairns to Sydney. The hull of the wreck was of dark colour." The day previous to this, the Pendle Hill passed through a severe etorm from the south we3t, duiing which a eea, broke on board which burst tne mainstaysail ; tho mainsail, gaff topsail and foretopmast staysail bung also carried away in a squall ; two of the boats were stove in by another sea. There is no reason to doubt that tho wrecked vessel seen perished in the same gale; but her identity with the "strange cutter " and the Sovereign of the Seas is by no means established. Further news of. the search at Gippsland will be awaited with anxiaty> ,