 Extracts published by the "Daily News" included cases he witnessed of Aborigines being tied together with chains, shackled round the neck.Among other abuses he described how illiterate Aborigines were induced to sign, with a pencil mark, a contract for life to dive for pearls, then were traded like slaves.On the sheep and cattle stations, Aboriginal men were assigned to squatters in a system not unlike the earlier "assigned convict" system of the eastern colonies, and females were taken as concubines and further ill-treated.