A story has been told in a Sydney paper (says the Leader) about the Burke and Wills exploring expedition, which has excited a good deal of righteous indignation for the slur it casts upon the memory of a brave man. A traveller in the neighbourhood of Cooper's Creek professes to have come across a. black gin, who informed him that one of the explorers, answering the description of King, shot Burke dead, and that she helped to cover the body with boughs. If this idle tale had been worked into a shilling novel for the benefit of sensation mongers, no notice would have been taken of it; but given in a newspaper upon the authority of a known correspondent,, it commands attention and a reply. King has gone to his account. and the only rebutting evidence we have is Burke'a diary, wherein he writes, shortly before his death, "King has done his duty nobly to the last." This is not the language of a man having enmity at his heart, or a knowledge of having committed a wrong only to be atoned for by sacrifice of life. But we may go further than this. The gin who is alleged to have made this statement must belong to the tribe with whom King lived so long, and from whom he wa3 rescued, and the story of the murder, if true, must be known to the whole of them. Yet neither Mr Howitt, nor any subsequent explorer met with any black who spoke upon such a subject. Some more reliable statement, therefore, than a black gin's story is neces sary before the public will insult the memory of a. man who, in Burkes words "did his duty nobly to the last," by believ ing King to have been a murderer.
