40 or 50 Aborigines come in for their “annual gift” of blankets at Maitland in the Hunter Valley. One “black lady” comes in for her blanket mounted on a very good horse with side-saddle, lady’s riding skirt. A local newspaper observes an “unusual number of children amongst whom [was] a perfect white child which at first [the correspondent] could scarcely believe belonged to our native [A]borigines. (Maitland Mercury, 21 May 1868, courtesy of Carl Hoipo, Wollombi Historical Society).