“ Billy Lanne, or King Billy, the last male representative of the aboriginal natives of Tasmania, died on Wednesday, 3rd March, 1869, and was supposed to have been buried with appropriate religious ceremonies on the following Saturday; but horrible as it sounds, and repugnant as the practice of mutilating the dead is to civilised minds, we have to chronicle the fact that before burial the head and feet of this last scion of an interesting race were removed from the body by some person, who has sacrificed the common feelings of humanity to zeal for science. ”

“ It would be idle to imagine that so valuable a skeleton would have been allowed to lie buried, and therefore the atrocity we are about to disclose appears the more inexcusable in that the object might undoubtedly have been obtained much more completely in a proper manner. On the night previous to the funeral Dr Crowther, and his son, who was a student of the hospital, and the barber of the institution, were the only persons in the dead-house where the body was, and these persons were seen to leave there without removing anything with them. ”

“ It was known that the surgeons of Hobart Town wished much to obtain the perfect specimen of a male native, for, strangely enough, no one had ever taken steps to secure one, although the race was known to be dying out, and it was feared that some scientific zealot would steal the body of King Billy as being the last chance of obtaining a complete skeleton ”