MURDER ON LONELY STATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 April 1918, Page 8

MURDER ON LONELY STATION.

■ *' l " _ Sydney, March 6. Some idea of tie lonely lives lived by some men encaged in the pastoral industry in out-back Australia is givjn by the circumstances attend big the murder of a station manager in the wildest of Gippsland, in Victoria. James Barclay, the manager of Wonnangatta cattle station, 100,000 acres, had lived entirely alone in the homestead for the greater part oi six years, his only companions being his dogs. Few persons passed that way: on one occasion. when the snow came down from Mount Howitt and cut off communications. he saw no one for two months.

Alout the beginning of last December he engaged a man cook, and in the middle of the month he and the cook rode : nto the nearest settlement to vote on the conscription referendum. That was the last time Barclay was seen alive. A inai'. who used to take his mail to him failed at the homestead with letters. There was a notice on the door, "Back in two days," so he left the letters and went away. A'fortnight later he called again. The notice and the letters were still there. He thereupon gave the alario, and, after some days, due to the remoteness of the station, a search was organised. There was a track through a fib rubbery adjoining the homestead, and this was followed down to a creek. Hers was discovered the body of Bartiay so decomposed that it was identifiable only by the clothes. It had been l>uri»d, but the creek had risen and tha food had washed out the remains. Barclay's revolver was missing from the house, but there are indications that

Barclay was poisoned, and his dead body dragged away. There wan no sign whatever of the cook, for whom the polica are now enquiring. La it Friday a party of police left for the station, to bring in the remains of the murdered man. for enquiry iby the Coroner. After leaving the railway they had io travel for 75, miles over a lonely trail that winds over broken, heavily'•vo'vled country. They had to climb COOOft over Mount Howitt. cross wide ralievs, and descend the precipitous sides cf a Tange. The station manager used to bring mobs of cattle oyer this trail, ■which was considered a remarkable feat. Thf> police expected that the return journey will occupy them a week.