NEW BRITAIN MASSACRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12663, 17 September 1904, Page 5

NEW BRITAIN MASSACRE.

FURTHER PARTICULARS. TOMARI NOT CAPTURED. FURTHER ATTEMPTS FRUSTRATED. By Telegraph. -Press Association.—Copyright. Sidkelj September 16. Fuller details of the massacre in New Britain show that one of f.he mission boys warned Padre Raster of the plot to murder him. As .similar rumours had been common he took no heel- of it. Tomari shot Padre Rasher while he was lying in bed sick, aid fired a .second shot,, which killed him, while one of "the sisters waa conducting the wounded man from the room. Ho then shot the sister dead. The shots were the signal for the other • murderers to cut down their victims with whom they were conversing. The- evidence is tha.v the whole masfiaae was carefully prearranged. Some of this bodies were horribly mutilated. Subsequently an attack was made out Vunaraarita station, and two more attacks were made wldie Padre Rasher's burial was proceeding. The whites or the settlement, assisted by the Bonka boys, engaged on the plantation,, beat off the attack, and killed come of their' assailants. Tomari had sent a message that he would ' kill anyone coming to remove the bodies,and that lie intended to kill all the whites,/' also the Governor and Bishop Couppe.' After the massacre the natives feasted-< upon the looted stores*. Tomari, in a speech, declared that ha, would drive all the whites out of the coun-. l jy. ) The latest imports say that the punitive expedition shot 15 and captured 20 of the murderers. Toman has not been caught. » At the tims of the massacre the Vice-! Governor was absent in German. New, Guinea suppressing a plot to,,it is simultaneously massacre all the whites..' One of the plotters, juafc before the thrift fixed' for the attack on the whites, assembled, and kepi; the natives at bay till the: arrival of the Vice-Governor with a strong body of police,, when, they were driven off. > The ringleaders were and, it fa. rumoured that 300 natives 'were killed, though the number officially stated is only, six. . . / ..' " , The natives also attacked the Catholic. Mission station, at Berlinhaven, and ouie of the brothers was speared a the ana. The father in charge of the statical foeafi the natives off with a rifle.