NEW ZEALAND BUSHRANGERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALAND BUSHRANGERS.

FROM THE DREGS OF HUMANITY

GOLD-DIGGING DAYS OF '66 RECALLED — MURDER OF FOUR TRAVELLERS—BURGESS. KELLY, LEVY AND SULLIVAN, A GANG OF ILL-REPUTE — BRUTAL SLAYING OF AGED PROSPECTOR AT MAUNGATIPU — WAS SULLIVAN THE GUILTY HIGHWAYMAN?—

TRAITOR WHO TURNED QUEEN'S EVIDENCE.

(By B. CBOXIN AND A. RUSSELL,.—AII Rights Reserved.)

The scene is set amid wild bush surroundings at Maungatipu, New Zealand, during the gold-digging days of 1866. New Zealand has not many bushrangers to her discredit, but those she has had appear to have been recruited from the very dregs of humanity. As such, at all events, may be classed the desperadoes Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and Sullivan, arrested and charged one day with the murder of four travellers in succession. In each case the victim was brutally murdered and robbed. Many suspects were detained and questioned by the authorities, but all managed to clear themselves. Then came tfce apprehension of the four men named- --a bushranging gang of ill-repute, both severally and collectively. The actual leader is not known with certainty, but it is thought to have been Burgess.

.The informer is a particularly despicable character, scorned alike by those he betrays and those to whom he makes betrayal. Of such vile stuff was Joseph Thomas Sullivan, commonly known as Tom Sullivan. It took very little persuasion on the part of the police to make this worthy turn Queen's evidence, for which act of treachery he was promised a full pardon. Accordingly, the rest of the gang were sent to their trial, with the result that society was very soon happily rid of them.

It so happened that during the hearing of the case—in fact, while Tom Sullivan was actually in the witness-box enacting the part of Judas—the pallid and lifeless body of poor old Jimmy Battle was discovered hidden under some fern,fronds on the scene of the previous murder. Suspicion pointed very strongly to Sullivan as the culprit, in spite of his vehement assertions that the guilt rested solely on his erstwhile companions. These, in turn, placed the whole blame upon Sullivan. Truth Deeply Concealed. Where the truth of it lay nobody could decide. It is true that Sullivan's Opponents had three accusing voices, whereas he had, himself, but one. Still, by a process of mathematics, it becomes easily seen that villainy, however multiplied by itself, remains villainy still, so that Tom bulhvan had nothing much to fear from testimony bo tainted. Criminologists have often remarked that a certain type of criminal seems to derive a vicarious satisfaction in taking to his xredit the misdeeds of others, in addition to his own; and that a certain other reverse type, while knowing himself full well to be guilty, and having nothing either to lose or gain by truthful admission, yet persists in maintaining his innocence.. Tom Sullivan, it would appear, belonged to the latter class. In a voluminous letter addressed from Dunedih gaol, on July 19, 1870, to "My dear wife"— but, it is strongly suspected, meant really for the eyes of authority—he gives his own version of the death of Jimmy Battle. And, it is scarcely necessary to say fiat he presents himself as a picture of distressed innocence. The original letter is in the possession of the writers, and every line of it is of interest. It begins as follows:— Dunedin Gaol, July 10, 1870. My dear Wife, ,-\ I owe a duty to you to make known facta connected with the dif-, fefent cases that, unfortunately, both for you and the boys, I was connected, with.' T have delayed writing about' these cases, believing that my im.prisonment was merely a question of time with the Government; that the clemency of the Crown would have been exercised on my behalf according to promises made when I was induced # to make known crimes committed in this colony, of which I had knowledge. I did so with a full behef and expectation that, after the conviction of the persons accused, I should receive a pardon, and I assisted the Crown in a most zealous manner to convict these men. Anger Aroused In Companions.

After more .preparatory matter of this kind, Sullivan goes on to say that he was arrested on June 19, 1866, with three other men for the supposed .murder of four men. who had been missed. When he was in the lock-up he saw proclamations offering a free pardon to an approver. Sullivan sent for the officer.in charge and agreed •with him to turn Queen's Evidence. When this came to the ears of the three men they were naturally very angry, and they made bitter counter-charges against Sullivan. « They immediately began to plan Sullivar's discomfiture. Sullivan -was not aware of this. He continued:

. "Although the three men were in separate cells, nevertheless, each time they came to court during the time they were under remand, they exchanged papers with one another.

Sullivan, complains that there was a new governor in charge of the gaol, who bad no experience.' There was a great laxity of all the officials,-and the place wag more like a boardinghouse than a gaol.

The public would never have heard one word of the note artfully concealed by Levy in the belly of a fish to be given to Burgess for his breakfast, if I had not had it intercepted. How long this has been carried on I do not know, but this note contained a great deal of .slang only known among thieves.,

Sullivan, having, discovered what his one-time confederates were up to, was thus able, to a certain extent, to prepare his defence. The letter continues, giving Sullivan's statement regarding the death of Jimmy Battle:—r. .' ? ...■-'. •

"On June 12, 1866," he says, "I was accompanied with Burgessj Kelly and Levy, travelling upon a road. I walked much faster and was ahead of them. When about half a mile ahead I met Mr. Cooper, owner of a refreshment house, and passed the time of day with him. I passed on for about four miles, made some tea and had some when Burgess, Levy and Kelly came. They were having something to eat and drink when the man, Battle, came along, carrying an old hag across his shoulder. He was travelling the same way as we were. After he had passed, Levy and.Kelly remarked he had something very heavy in his pocket, which they believed to be gold, and after some further talk I said, if the man had gold he would have better clothing, for he was very badly clothed, but Kelly, hy his logic,- overruled my opinion, and Burgess said to mc, 'You

are not eating. . You can overtake him and manage'to find out if he has come from Deep Creek diggings.'"

Gold Demanded at Pistol Point,

Sullivan thereupon proceeded after Battle, and travelled with him for about a mile, when Burgess, Kelly and Levy overtook them. Burgess, stepping in front of Jimmy Battle, asks Sullivan what he thought of him. Sullivan, according to his own account, gays he made no answer, but stayed behind. After a quarrel between Burgess and Sullivan, during which Sullivan says he endeavoured to dissuade his companions from thought of crime. Burgess suddenly drew a revolver, and, flourishing it in Jimmy Battle's face! said: "Come on, old man; you have some gold. # I- must have it.". • ' It is not very hard to imagine the terror which must have filled the old fossicker on thus suddenly being made aware of the ruffianly character of the men who had overtaken him. Every goldfield has its following of old men who ;«ndeavour to eke out a living by fossick-

ing here and there,on the flats or gullies,; or at the dumps of the big mines, for! alluvial gold. Occasionally these old fellows, who were, of course, all armed with their miner's right, made quite a modest ' fortune; ' although, in most instances, they made, as is colloquially said, bare tucker. Jimmy Battle was one of these old men. He was quite alone in the world, and it seems that he had been for some time fossicking on the Deep Creek diggings. With his little treasure in his pack he was now making back towards civilisation, probably dreaming of a fairly comfortable existence for the years of life remaining to Mm.

One can picture his timidity, for the bush was notoriously full of men of Tom. Sullivan's type, who preyed upon their more fortunate fellows, sooner than engage in honest occupations for themselves. The old man had plenty of spirit. He was prepared to sell his life very dearly. But he must have known how slender his chances were. He had four assailants, each of them armed—and uglylooking customers, enough. Also, few travellers apparently passed that way, and the thick bush all about him would! smother the cries h» might make I for assistance.

To continue Sullivan's letter:— "With that the old man drew a sheath-knife upon Burgess. Levy called out: 'Dick, look out. He has a knife!' while Kelly, at this time, passed down the way we had come. The old man said he had no gold, only a little money. At this moment a gun was discharged close by, from the direction we were travelling, and Burgess said: 'Go and. get the long stick (meaning a gun), and see who is firing, and watch them.' I went. At this time the old man was sitting in the middle of the road."

Sullivan had not been gone very long, according' to himself, before bis companions rejoined him. He. declares that he did not like their looks, and that when he questioned them concerning old Jimmy Battle they made evasive and almost threatening replies. Ho was by now very suspicious as to what had occurred during his absence, particularly since he had heard the old man cry out: "Do you want to murder me?", and had heard Burgess reply savagely: "Yes, if you give the 'pay-out.'" Pay-out, in the argot of thieves, means, making a noise. Then there had come the sound of a revolver shot, and a thudding among the undergrowth. Later, too, Burgess had remarked: "Old Jimmy has proved the toughest nut we've yet cracked."

That night his companions showed plainly that they were suspicious of Sullivan. In order to safeguard himself, he says, he_ began to relate to them imaginary crimes which he had committed, in order to persuade them that he was as desperate a character as themselves. In reality, so he tells his wife, he had committed no crimes of the kind.

The rest of the letter, which occupies in _full some seventeen pages of closely written foolscap, on both sides, gives Sullivan's account of the murders of three other travellers, which he lays to the charge of his companions. The conclusion of the letter is given over'to reassertion of his innocence, and the protestation thit he hao. neen made a tool of.

"If the Crown will not accede to my request to be set at liberty, 1 trust that the Almighty will speedily remove me from this earth. If we never meet again in this world, I pray we may where there is no sorrow is the sincere prayer of your unfortunate husband, Joseph Thomas Sullivan."

A brief postscript follows, in which he tells his wife that he has no friend to rely on in this world but her, and he trusts that she will be able to bring his case and her own under the notice of the Governor.

Despite the defence made by Sullivan, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. 1 After numerous petitions to the authorities, the death sentence was altered to one of imprisonment for life. More petitions. followed, pointing out that Sullivan, in turning Queen's Evidence, had rendered a service to the Crown and that he had been promised a free pardon for turning informer. Eventually Sullivan received a free pardon. .But he was not released immediately, being kept in gaol until threats which were uttered against him that be would be lynched, seemed to have died down. In spite of his assertions that he was a victim, and not an accomplice, it may be recorded that the conclusion of his life, when settled in Victoria, -was concerned with a number of shady dealings. So to this day one can only guess as to who actually killed poor old Jimmy Battle; but there is no doubt whatever that it was one of the four bushrangers mentioned m the foregoing, and it is highly probable that it was Sullivan, himself.