HORRIBLE MURDER AT THE MIA MIA FLAT.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 226, 20 December 1859, Page 4

HORRIBLE MURDER AT THE MIA MIA FLAT.

About.six o'clock on Monday evening intelligence arrived at the camp that a man had been brutally murdered at the lower end of the $tta M& , Flat.- On proceeding ito the spot a most ghastly spectacle: was presented. Upon the ground, weltering in his blood, lay a man apparently about thirty years of age, dying from several wounds he had received. The particulars of this brutal murder are as follows:— During the afternoon, four diggers, named respectively Matthew Bourne, Morris Dandow, Jasper Fitlock, and William Bryant, had been drinking freely in their tent; a.quarrel arose, which after the exchange of a, few words, subsided, but a threat having been implied subsequently by one of the men, a challenge to fight ensued, and two out of the four adjourned outside the tent to settle the difference in a pugilistic encounter. After fighting several rounds DandowV opponent found himself getting the worst of it, and he rushed into the tent, and shortly reappeared bearing a heavy American axe, with which he smote his adversary on his left breast, laying open a wound through which, although almost choked with blood, the palpitation of the heart could be plainly discerned. Oh the unfortunate man receiving the blow he fell to the ground, when the .dastardly; murderer uplifted his weapon and struck his victim on the frontal bone, laying the forehead open for several inches and cutting a portion of the ear off. The two other mates rushed from the tent and. armed themselves with short sticks, with which they inflicted several blows on the body of the prostrate man. The noise, confusion, and cries both of the murderers and their victim at length reached the ears -of a few men tented: some distance away, who ran for the police, a portion taking the Toad to tie Back Creek, and another departing; to Amherst. On arrival of the police, from Back Greek, the three men, who hacl hovered about the sanguinary scene, were .immediately placed under arrest and conveyed to the police camp at the rear of Scandinavian crescent. Mr Inspector Hare, who was among the first to arrive*'despatched a constable for surgical assistance, who shortly returned, bringing'with him Br Radcliffe. The doctor, on examining the wounded man, pronounced him beyond human skill. Mr Inspector Hare ordered him to be removed to the tent, where, up to the late hour of out going to press, he was lying in the last stage of existence, without the slightest probability of his surviving until morning. -— Back Creek Advertiser.