“When writing down, therefore, my journal, I considered it unnecessary to make a full statement of all that had come to my knowledge since the month of March, concerning that most horrid event, or even to relate it as something new, as it was not only known several months since to the respective authorities, but also as almost every one at Moreton Bay supposed that an investigation would take place without delay.

“I have, etc.
“(signed) “William Schmidt,
“Missionary.""S.  Simpson, Esq.,
“Commissioner of Crown Lands,
“Eagle Farm.”

“WOOGAROO, Moreton bay, 6th may, 1843.

“Sir,—­I have the honour to report, for the information of his Excellency, that during my excursion to the Bunga country, I have taken every opportunity of instituting an inquiry as to the truth of the alleged poisoning of some Aborigines at a sheep station in the north of this district.  A report of the kind certainly exists among the two tribes I fell in with, namely, the Dallambarah and Coccombraral tribes, but as neither of them were present at the time, they could give me no circumstantial information whatever on the subject.  The Giggabarah tribe, the one said to have suffered, I was unable to meet with.  Upon inquiry at the stations to the north, I could learn nothing further than that they had been using arsenic very extensively for the cure of the scab, in which operation sheep are occasionally destroyed by some of the fluid getting down their throats; and as the men employed frequently neglect to bury the carcases, it is very possible that the Aborigines may have devoured them, particularly the entrails, which they are very fond of, and that hence some accident of the kind alluded to may have occurred without their knowledge.

“I have, etc.
“(signed) S. Simpson,
“Commissioner of Crown Lands.”

“The Honourable E. D. Thomson,
“Colonial Secretary.”

For the sake of humanity I would hope that such unheard of atrocities cannot really have existed.  That the bare suspicion even of such crimes should have originated and gained currency in more than one district of Australia, is of itself a fearful indication of the feeling among the lowest classes in the colonies, and of the harrowing deeds to which that might lead.

Extract from South Australian Registe, 10th of July, 1841, after the return of Major O’Halloran and a party of sixty-eight individuals, sent up the Murray to try and rescue property stolen by blacks.  “In the mean time we cannot but think that the disappointment so generally expressed, because Major O’Halloran has returned ‘without firing A shot,’ is somewhat unreasonable, seeing that in his presence the natives did nothing to warrant an extreme measure, and that there were no means of identifying either