A GRUESOME ISLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 162, 8 January 1912, Page 2

A GRUESOME ISLAND.

■ '■ • ■ 1 MOST TREACHEROUS PEOPLE IN TEE WORLD. Interest has been aroused in Australia by complaints made by the native inhabitants of Roasel Island, the most isolated of the Louisade Group, lying to the south-east of Papua, that two European settlers hod been destroying their pro perty and treating them cruelly. The desire of the islanders to secure protection from the Commonwealth authorities is curious in the light of the extremely ; gruesome history of the little island. The natives are described by those who know thiem best as the moat treacherous race in the world and the most expert, practised and determined murderers ever known. It is said that their whole lives are. spent in murder and cannibalism, the body of evtery victim being eaten. The islanders carry no weapons, committing all their murders by strangling and smothering. .When a man is marked, out for death a group of natives will crowd round him and simply squeeze out his life. If a chief who orders a murder does not wish to eat his victim at once the. poor wretch is caught and his legs and arrms are broken, so that he shall not escape. In that condition he is left until the chief is ready for his least. The islanders murder anyone who is unpopular, anyone who gives information to the authorities (Conoerainlp their practices, and anyone who breaks a native law. At the death of every chief they murder a man or a woman., and only recently they have abolished' the practice of committing a murder for every death amomr their number. In 1858 a ship was wrecked on Rossel Island, and its crew and a very large number of Chinese passengers, said to exceed 300, sought refuge. The natives lescorted them to a small island, and left them there without means of escape. _ The prisoners were kept supplied with food from the mainland, and at intervals small parties were taken away to be eaten. It is related that only one of tlie captives, an old man, escape* murder at the hand's of the cannibals. When he got away from the island and told his story it was ridiculed, but careful inquiry proved its* truth. The reputation of the Rossel islanders-is to. bad that they are avoided even by the warlike inhabitants of the neighborm* ielande. °'