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THE PORT DENISON TIMES
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1864.
The want of adequate protection for the outlying districts is one that has long been felt, and might well have figured in the statement of district requirements laid before the Minister for Lands and Works on his recent visit to this port. The murder of the two unfortunate shepherds, which we chronicled last week, will, we hope, have the effect of bringing this want more prominently before the Government. The town is now supplied with a sufficient number of constables, but the country districts may be said to be totally without protection; for when it is remembered that the small force of eleven black trooopers, under the command of Lieutenant MARLOW, have to traverse the immense tract of country lying between the Pioneer river and the Upper Burdekin, it is evident that the assistance they can render, in case of disturbance by the blacks, must be very small. And as these disturbances take place most frequently at the extremities of the district under Lieutenant MARLOW'S command, viz. at the Pioneer and the Burdekin, his weak force is weakened by being divided. A lieutenant, sergeant and eleven troopers have been sent to Rockingham Bay, whose services, we presume will be confined principally to the new settlement, the Valley of Lagoons, and the country immediately around, and, as we are told, to lending a hand occasionally at unloading vessels. That the settlers there stand in need of and are entitled to police protection cannot be disputed; but whether as large a force is required for that locality as for the district we have named may be open to question. The number of troopers originally intended for this district was twenty-two, but has never exceeded eleven; and this sad experience has proved to be insufficient to afford our pioneer settlers and the men in their employ that security against the assul's [sic] of the natives to which they are justly entitled.