RESCUE OF TWO CHILDREN FROM THE WIDE BAY BLACKS.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 November 1859, Page 4

RESCUE OF TWO CHILDREN FROM THE WIDE BAY BLACKS.

[From the Sydney Empire, October 17.)

In our Saturday's issue we reported some particulars of the rescue of two white firls from the aboriginal natives on Frazer*s sland, through the exertions of the owner and the master of the schooner Coquette— Mr. Sawyer and Captain Arnold. The girls have since arrived in Sydney, under the care of Mr. Sawyer, who brought jthem up from Newcastle in the steamer Williams, and has taken them to his own residence at Balmain. Mr. Sawyer will, we understand, surrender his charge to the Government today, with a full report of his proceedings. There are at present some circumstances wanting in the narrative of this rescue; but the following facts have come to our knowledge through various scources. The owner and captain of the Coquette having been in communication with the Government on the subject, the schooner, on her last visit to Wide Bay, despatched a party in search of the white people who were believed to be on Frazer's Island. This island is about seventy miles in length, and is inhabited by four tribes of aborigines, the most northerly of which was the tribe that held the children in captivity. The party despatched from the ship consisted of Mr. Sawyer, a person who was engaged in trading at Frazer's Island, and two volunteers from the vessel. Having obtained the assistance of about forty-five native blacks belonging to the Southern tribe of Frazer's Island, they proceeded to the northward, accompanied also by an aboriginal who has come up in the Coquette, and who speaks sufficient English to act as an interpreter. For three days the party searched on one side of the island, but, having been unsuccessful there they transferred their search to the other side. Here, after two days' examination, they, with the assistance of their native allies, came upon the tracks of the blacks and the children, the former being evidently aware that the party were on their trail. The J tribe in whose possession the children were, numbered about two hundred, but, by a skilfully arranged manoeuvre, the party managed to rush upon a smaller encampment, when the natives took to their heels, leaving the two girls, who appeared to be too terrified to follow. At first the children were unwilling to leave with their rescuers, having become quite familiarised with the habits of the aborigines, and indeed having lost all remembrance of their native tongue. Finally, however, they were conveyed to the beach, and got safely onboard the Coquette, without the loss of a single life in effecting their rescue, though the utmost promptitude was necessary in order to elude pursuit. The girls thus saved from a horrible captivity, and now brought up to Sydney, appear to be of the respectable ages of about ten and fifteen years, but so deplorable is the physical condition to which they are reduced that it is difficult to form a correct opinion on this point. Their faces have lost all traces of childhood, and bear the appearance of withered old age. Besides this, their captors seem to have resorted to their barbarous customs for the purpose of completely changing the features^ of these poor orphans. Their noses having been flattened, and the nostrils distended. Their mouths appear to have been widened by artificial means, and the lips turned upwards; but it is not impossible that the last named disfigurement may have been caused by the manner in which they were compelled to consume their food, while in the hands, of these savages. For the first five days they obstinately refused to eat anything excepting sugar of the coarsest quality, but after ! a time they took to boiled fish, which they consumed most ravenously whenever they had an opportunity. Through the agency of the Wide Bay blacks before mentioned, it has been ascertained that the eldest calls herself Kitty, and the youngest Maria, and they say that their mother's name was Mary. They state further that their ship capsized at sea, and that the crew and passengers made the north end of Frazer's Island, by means of the ship's boats; but that all hands were murdered by the blacks on landing, with the exception of their mother and her family. The mother is said to have died about a year after landing, and the boy abont ten months ago. There is some reason to think that a fourth child survives and is still on the Island.

Breaking a Wife's Leg with a Kick— At the Salford Town Hall, an elderley man, named Richard Brown, living in Sovereign street, Pendleton, was charged with wilfully and violently kicking his wife. A police constable stated that on the previous morning the prisoner was given into custody on a charge of assailting his wife, on Sunday, the 3rd instant. He only replied, " It's a bad job."—lt appears that his wife was taken to the Manchester fcoyal Infirmary, and on Thursday her deposition was taken, as she was considered to be in a precarious state. She deposed that on Sunday, the 3rd instant, her husband cane home at dinner time, " forward in drink." She told him he ought to have come home sooner to dinner, and without any further provocation, he kicked her to the floor. He kicked her with his clogs, just above tfoj left ankle, completely breaking the bone.—The prisoner was remanded for a week, when his wife will perhaps be able to attend Court.— Manchester Guardian.

A Swindling Scheme in JSew Forh—k swindling scheme has been discovered in New York, but not until a numerous band^ ofthe "gull" had been handsomely bled. It was based on a pretended loan of 14,000,000, florins for the Grand Duchy of Baden, connected with a lottery, which was to have its drawing August 31. The swindlers, who called themselves Constantine, Fellner, and Co., professed to be agents for.L. O. Rothchilds and Co., of JYankfort-on the-Maine, which name was

enough like that of ..Both(*).d»ilds* to give it a metallic twang, not to speak of the address. The swindling went on successfully for some time, and was only blown up by the magnitude of the operations to which it gave rise—the number of letters the1 false firm received attracting attention at j the post office. Most of these letters came from the south and the west, quarters of the union that appear to have far more than their proper share of the gullible element of our population. The lottery will never be drawn, and the tickets will answer to file with Mississippi bonds and other curious documents ofthe same character.

Manners mahth ye Man. —The motto of William of Wykeham, is a sermon of itself, full of sound doctrine and teaching. Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them in a great measure the laws depend.. The law touches us but here and there, now and then; manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarise or refine us, lay a constant, steady uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe. They give our lives their whole form and colour. According to their quality they aid or destroy morals. A Portrait. —The young lady had, of course, her round hat, with its valance of lace glittering with tawdry bugles; her scarlet jupon, with its dark stripes, not following the lines of the form, but cutting it up into neat horizontal sections; her flounced dress, looped-up and festooned about her like old fashioned window curtains. And all this surmounted, I am not quite certain whether by a senseless mantle with an unmeaning bow at the back, or by an impudent jacket withbig buttons down the front, such as Christie Johnstone might have worn with an air, but which utterly extinguished the meek little maiden it encased. Then she had boots like a gamekeeper's, and gloves like a hedger's. Besides which, she wore large gold ear-rings—not reposing serenely under dark masses of majestic braids, like sunbeams gilding a marble column; not glancing coquettishly through a labyrinth of ringlets, like dew drops flashing among summer boughs—but solid, heavy, halfcirclets of the precious metal, that said to every one. "We are ear-rings; gold ear-rings; come and look at us!" And for all this, as has before been intimated, this was no Amazonian dame, for conquest armed; no strong-minded female, doing penance for the vanities of her sex. No : she was merely a simple hearted country girl, dressed according to the last fashion book. — Magdalen Stafford. Tremendous Fertility.— A Mississipian was bragging to a Yankee of the fertility of the soil of his region. To give a practical illustration of his subject, he said that he went to the woods to cut down an oak tree. After he had chopped for about a week or ten days, he thought he would take a walk round the tree, just to see how much more he had to cut. When he got to the other side, he saw another man chopping on the same oak. "I say," says our friend, "how long have you been cutting?" " Just three weeks," says a stranger. The tree was so big round that they did not hear the sound of each other's axes!

A Strange Custom. —There is one strange custom observed here in all the houses. In the chief room rows of chairs are placed, facing each other, three or four or five in each line, and always running at right an-, gles with the street wall of the house. As you pass along the street, you look up this row of chairs. In these the family and the visitors take their seats, in formal order. As the windows are open, deep, and large, with wide gratinst and no glass, one has the inspection of the interior arrangement of all the front parlors of Havana, and can see what every lady wears, and who his visiting her. — To Cuba and Back By B. H Dana, jun. An Englishman's Cane. —A non-paying John Eull was arrested and taken to the prison of Clichy—the janitor at the door stripping him of his superfluities, as usual, and among other things of his cane. To this however, the prisoner violently objected, and for eighteen months that he was incarcerated, he gave but one sign of life or mortal desire, which was to re-possess his cane. Touched, at last, by the perseverance of his monomania, and supposing it to be only a whim, the governor commanded them to comply with his request. The cane was accordingly handed through the grating upon which the prisoner unscrewing the top, took out a roll of bank notes, paid the debt with interest, and walked coolly off, his cane in his hand! The Chains of St. Peter. —A letter from Home in the Union says: —" I have recently witnessed the celebration of a religions: festival which the Romans always observe with peculiar fervour—l allude to the feast of St Peter in Vinculis, during which the chains that fettered St. Peter in his dungeon at Jerusalem and Rome are exposed for a week to the veneration ofthe faithful. It is well known that, by divine permission, and in. order to remove the doubts which had arisen in certain minds, the two chains used to bind St. Peter at Jerusalem and Rome clung together when brought into contact, and became so closely, joined that it is now imposible to tell where one ends and the other begins. These chains are preserved in the church of St. Peter in "Vinculis, built, a.d. 442, by the. Empress Eudoxia, wife of Valentine 111., Emperor of the West. This princess presented to Pope Leo the chain with which St. Peter was bound by Herod's, command in the prison of Jerusalem, having herself received it as a gift from Juvenal, the patriarch of that city. The chnrch was rebuilt in the 16th century, a!n<l modified in the 17th. It contains the magnificent statue of Moses, by Michael Argelo, and many admirable paintings by Cruercino, Domenichiho, Guido, and Griilio Romano. During the, week.! the chuck was crowded with people, all the j

more anxious to kiss the chains sanctified by the sufferings of the Prince, of Apostles, as these venerable relics are only exposed at this festival, and cannot be seen at another time, without an express permission from the Pope. The Holy Father, attended by several prelates attached to the household, came to the church to join in the prayeri of the faithful, and venerate these precious chains, which bound the first pastor of the Church, whose seat he at present fills." In Austrian Italy the prohibition of the export of horses is so strictly enforced, that a company of circus riders which was about to cross into Piedmont, to give performances at one of the Turin theatres, was detained until it could be ascertained from Vienna whether its egress would be permitted. .A neighbour asked a country vicar for his pulpit for a young divine, a,relation of his. "I really do not know," said the clergyman, " how to refuse you; but if the young man should preach better than I, my congregation will be dissatisfied with me afterwards; and if he should preach worse why I don't think he's fit to preach at all."

A Clever Dodge.— A lover of the weed, who had made, an agreement to taper off in cigar smoking, burinng only three the first day, two the second, and one the third, ordered his cigar maker to make him three cigars, each twelve inches long for the first day's taper; two of eighteen inches for/-th'e second, and one of thirty-six for the third. And thus he stuck to his agreement and got his smoke. \