NATIVES SHOW FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 54, 6 March 1922, Page 7

NATIVES SHOW FIGHT

POLICEMAN'S ADVENTURE IN

QUEENSLAND

(IROJI OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 22nd February. A sensational i story of, a constable's fight with aboriginals comes from Cairns, in North Queensland. The aboriginals there have been giving considerable trouble, and a constable whose duty took him to one of the camps met with a hostile reception at the hands of four blacks who were Jiving in a state of semi-outlawry. Constablqs Selby and Dickson went out to arrest a blackboy named Oliver, who had absconded from the hired servioe of Charles Myers, . On arrival at 17-Mile, it,was found ! that there were two aboriginals' camps, and the constables divided, Dickson going to one and Selby to the other. Selby was accompanied by a blackboy. When Selby and the blackboy arrived at the camp, they found that there were four male aboriginals there. On Constable Selby'a arrival the blacks immediately became hostile towards him, and in order to frighten them, he fired a shot from his revolver into , the air. The blacks, however, rushed him, catching him by the arms and body, and a struggle ensued, during which the revolver which Constable Selby held in one hand, was evidently accidentally discharged, the bullet lodging, in the calf of one of'Selby's legs. In the struggle Constable Selby was felled, and the aboriginals became still more desperate, and kicked him about the body. Endeavouring to protect himself, and hoping to frighten them, Selby, who ■still held the revolver, fired another shot into the air, and it is thought that the shot may have taken effect in the shoulder of one of the blackfellows. The'blacks then kicked the revolver out of Selby's hand, but he eventually got away and made for the house of a fanner named Smyth, about a mile distant. The fugitives are said to have escaped to the Jordan Ranges, and the riigffed nature of the country, with the flooded creeks, will make the work very difficult for the police, but it is hoped that a capture will soon be effected. An interesting feature of the canip was an alarm, which th«y had arranged, in order to give warning of the approach of any visitors. Another affray with aborigines occurred during the: week' near Eurtvflle (W.A.). A well-known goldfield identity and prospector, "Dixie" Scott, was filling a tank with water at a dam. A tribe of aborigines, numbering between thirty and forty, objected to his taking the water, which is very scarce in ,/-that neighbourhood. One aborigine, aimed with an old pick-head, attacked Scott, who seized a piece of iron jpipß, five feet long. The aboriginal threw the pickhead, but it missed Scott. Simultaneously Scott .struck at his assailant. This increased the fury of the aborigines, and Scott, recognising that he had no chance against them, drove hurriedly away, pursued by a shower of native missiles. Bo \vas struck several times on the back, and one nulla broke a bone in one of his arms. The aborigines continued to follow him until near Burtville, where he received a treatment at the hospital, The police are in pursuit of the aborigines, who have returned to the interior.*