^"THE ABORIGINES OF TASMANIA - "King Billy", whose death we recently recorded, was the last man of a race which only half a century ago numbered 7,000 souls. There is still an aged woman left of the aboriginal population of Tasmania. There has been an unseemly struggle for the skeleton of "King Billy". He died at Hobart Town, and his body was taken to the dead-house of the General Hospital. It is stated that on the night before the funeral a medical gentleman connected with the hospital abstracted the skull, intending to send it to the English College of Surgeons, and inside the scalp the skull of the corpse of a white man, also in the dead-house, was inserted in lieu of that which had been removed. When this mutilation was discovered the hands and feet were cut off to frustrate any attempt of the first mutilator to obtain the whole skeleton. The trunk was then buried, the coffin carried to the grave covered with a black opossum skin rug, and followed by above a hundred citizens. In the following night, it is stated, the body was raised from the grave by order of the house surgeon of the hospital. What will be the fate of the head does not appear to be known, but the rest of the skeleton was to go to the museum of the Royal Society of Tasmania." - The Times, Saturday, 29 May 1869; pg. 9; Issue 26450; col E
