OUTRAGE BY QUEENSLAND BLACKS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4258, 17 July 1895, Page 5

OUTRAGE BY QUEENSLAND BLACKS.

Sydney files just to hand give the following particulars of an outrage recently referred to in the cable messages : — On 14th May John Mulligan, the owner of some teams engaged in carrying rations for the Victoria River Downs station, with his assistant, George Ligar, and three Queensland black boys and their lubras, was camped at Jasper Creek Gorge. After supper Mulligan's blacks visited a natives' camp on the opposite side of the creek, taking firearms with them. About eight M ulligan and Ligar were standing near the waggons, when they were suddenly attacked by a large body of natives. Mulligan was hit on the leg with a spear-head, which was formed of a sheepshear. Ligar"was struck in the back with a spear, which penetrated frito the lung, and he was also hit in'th'e face' with a glass-pointed spear, which entered under the nose on the right side of the cheek. Mulligan drove off the blacks by firing at them with a rifle. Ligar, who was bleeding profusely, was unable to render him any assistance. Next morning the two men were making a barricade with bags of flour in anticipation of another attack, when one of Mulligan's black boys fired at Ligar. It was afterwards learnt that these Queensland blacks had persuaded the other natives to join them in an attack upon the teamsters. The assault was kept up for three days ; then Mulligan, finding his companion becoming very weak, decided to try and make Tuvargerne station, where assistance could be had. Both the men reached Bradshaw's Camp, and Hugh Young and a party of men went to the scene of the outrage. They found that the blacks had plundered the waggons, and the goods were scattered in all direcj tions for a distance of twenty miles. The blacks carried away the flour, sugar, and tobacco. The manager of the Victoria River Downs Station, with a party of eighteen, tracked the blacks some distance, and captured three old gins. Through them it was discovered that Mulligan's black boys had a plentiful supply of ammunition for their rifles and revolvers, having stolen it from the waggons. They also had six head of horses, with saddles. The "boys" who thus treacherously attacked him had worked for Mulligan for fifteen years, and he thought them quite trustworthy. Mulligan and Ligar were taken to the Port Darwin Hospital by steamer. Although both ara badly injured, hopes are entertained of their recovery.