“UN PETIT LOUP.”

Evening Star, Issue 15064, 21 December 1912, Page 10

“UN PETIT LOUP.”

A GOLDFIELD STICKING-U.P CASE. [By A Cocknky Fossicker.] My people in. tho Old Country keep mo pretty well supplied with Loudon papers, although it is more than 5(1 years since ‘ to bettor my fortunes 1 crossed the wide seas,” and more than 20 years since I last set foot in the city of the great smoke. I was not a little astonished to read in the budget sent tor my Christmas reading that there had been two cases of stickingup in broad daylight in busy London thoroughfares. There was that pawnbroker’s shop robbery in the Edgewaro road, when the three men bolted with some valuable rings, commandeered a motor car, and escaped with their booty, keeping pursuers at a distance with pointed revolvers. Fancy this in well-policed London! Then came the more recent robbery at Attenborough’s jewellery shop in the Strand, when three men (I wonder whether it was the same three that did the Edgeware road job r 1 ) smashed a window, abstracted a necklace worth £3BO, bolted up.Lumley court, which has the jewellers shop at tho corner and iron, gates at the other end near Maiden lane, padlocked tho gates in sight of the pursuers, and got clear away. Those outrages set mo thinking about a

.Vißs • uulL occurred on the Back Creek diggings, about midway between Ballarat and Castlemaiuo, in the early seventies. The great rush was over then ; the 20.000 diggers had dwindled down to a few hundreds; the big wooden theatre that J. R. Greville had erected before he joined the Coppm and Harwood syndicate in Alelbourne had long been closed, except when taken by strolling companies, and was very badly flea-infested, as the occasional audiences learned to their discomfort. A few registered and co-operative companies wore trying with very inadequate pumping machinery and horse whims to trace the famous old load into deep, wet ground, but the alluvial flat was given over lor the most part to fossickers aud ptiddlers like myself. A remnant ol the early diggers was left'who know whore the rich patches had been, and thoso ; sank or paddocked, and cradled headings and false bottoms in the hope ol bringing to light remunerative washdirt that had been overlooked or remained undiscovered. Now aud again a good patch was come across that was duly chronicled in tire local bi-weekly paper, a.ud thus caused a small rush and some friction amongst the diggers as to whether the lucky ones had not pegged put more ground than they were entitled to. These disputes were investigated on the spot by the local warden and police magistrate, and as tills official will appear with some prominenceSn connection with the stick-mg-np case I am dealing with, a description of him will ho helpful. He bore a very Frenchified, aristocratic name, was certainly gentlemanly, looked well in his London-made newchum clothes, talked with a haw-haw affectation, and had certainly received his appointment, not from judicial qualifications, but from family influence. The diggers wcrc_ not likely to

treat such a representative of the law with much respect, and at times were positively rude to His Worship. I have seen the poor man standing on a heap of mullock taking note-book evidence as to tho merits of a jumping case where tho disputants would try to ring in out-of-date miners’ rights, pitch pebbles into his side pockets, give palpably absurd evidence, and when the perplexed warden announced that he would reserve decision, tho men would hurst out in roars of laughter; for the current belief was that, as it was so hard to make up his mind on a case, he used to go home and “ ask Charlotte”.—that is to say his wife—for it was admitted the marc was much the bettor horse. But to come to the stickiug-up case that caused such a hubbub at the time and kept the police pretty busy. His M orship lived on a small farm of about 20 acres on a flat midway between Back Greek and another old load that had been discovered by the overlanders from Adelaide when the Forest Creek rush (Castlemaine) broke out. The residence was a large, harn-like structure, built with split slabs, but covered with climbing plants that gave it quite a picturesque appearance. On the other side of the road, fronting tlie magisterial residence, was open bush, part of the goldfield reserve, pretty thickly covered with stumps .that the diggers had left when cutting slabs, a lot of crooked box trees not fit for mining timber, and an undergrowth of wattle! A hill known as Mount Belvedere was close by, in tho sides of Which several holes had been sunk by prospectors looking for reefs but finding none. The magistrate’s family comprised his-wife, two daughters not past sweet sixteen, and a younger son, all at that time very new-chummish. The household name for the son was Lu-lu—not that his godfather or godmother had anything to do with, such a front name, for it was given to the young cub by a French nursemaid who was troubled with the boy’s behaviour in his tender years, and dubbed him “un petit loup” fa little wolf). The lad did his best to live up to his infantile reputation. He was kept very much at homo with tutors (none of them staved long) to educate him., but when ho" did find Ins way into local gatherings, public or private, Alaster Lu-lu insisted on having everything his own wav, and when thwarted threatened to' “ tell papa.” THE STICKING-DP. - -[was in the prime of summer time that the whole district was alarmed by the rumor that the magistrate s son had been hound to a tree opposite his father’s residence hv two bushrangers with their faces covered, who, when they found nothing more valuable on the boy than a pocketknife much the worse for wear and other nnconsidered trifles, made him swear not to raise an alarm for half an hour They then rode off, after bring a bullet into the tree’ just above the boy s head, and threatening that

another would go into his heart if he raised an alarm too soon. Master Lu-lu was not long in finding Ins way homo and putting terror 'into the household by narrating his adventure with the bushrangers. His father cross-examined him. was shown the rope, and taken to the tree with tlie AVHH, 111 :t - Even the clover UiarJotte was convinced that her cariing had been subjected to the, iudigmties described. A hue and rrv was raised, the sergeant of police was ordered to make inrmmes, and the mounted police scoured the country. A gardener living close to the scene, and who was working on ins Janet at the time indicated, when questioned by the police, said be could only say that he had lost his blind hoise recently, but had seen no suspicious characters about, and had heard no shooting in the bush. As the local police were quite baffled, and Lu-lu stuck to his story, Ballarat detectives were pressed into the inquiry, and on arming found that not a soul outside the magistrate’s family circle believed one \\ oid of the stickmg-up adventure. I nrtber investigation proved that there nas no bullet mark in the tree trunk, but -only an indentation made with some_ blunt instrument. Finally tlie imaginative Lu-lu confessed that the whole story was a hoax, aud pleaded hard lor forgiveness. •*** * * * * hoi many vears past the perpetrator of this youthful escapade has occupied important positions in one of the large Melbourne banks, the young ladies . have married well, and the parents ■ have been gathered to their fathers. ■ 4 i, mi ' V Dame IS well known amongst British novelists to-day—a proof that , some of its members at least were brainy The gardener’s horse, not long ■ after the rticking-up episode, was fonnd with its neck broken down one of the : abandoned prospecting shafts on the slope of Mount Belvedere, - .