A MODERN DICK TURPIN.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1520, 19 February 1886, Page 4

A MODERN DICK TURPIN.

The other daj, in one of the jails of New Zealand (says a writer in the I Pall Mall Gazette), there died (not at all in the odour of sanctity) a roan whose career had been a remarkable one, and who for many years had been an object, first of terror, then of interest, to the colonies. He was a convict, and. what is more, a criminalHenry Garrett was the sort of character round which many strange stories seem natnrally to collect. He was one of those beings who | possess a certain capacity of potentiality for romance. In another generation or two, when he has had time to become a trifle legendarv, and the memory of his crimes to have become mellowed and softened by distance, he : will be one of the Dick Turpin, .1 "" ppard sort of heroes so popular with some people, and for whom, I must admit, I have a sort [ of sneaking liking myself. With no wish to make a hero of the departed Garrett, there Bre some episodes in his career which 'almost seem worthy of the brief glory of a newspaper article, and which go to show how many good and even endearing qualities may exist by the side of the utmost lawlessness The writer remembers how pleasantly Garrett was always spoken of in New Zealand, where he had committed some j of his most daring robberies ; even the men whom he bad robbed had something to say in his favour, and the I prison authorities, who should know, if | anyone should, all bad a sort ot kindliness for the graceless reprobate. The jail surgeon took him wine from his own cellar during his last illness; the i chaplain, although the prisoner was I quite unawakened and unbelieving, was 1 always ready to visit him, and the ! governor had so an opinion of! his spoken word that he says he would J have trusted him to leave the jail alone ! if he had promised to return at a cer- ! tain time. During his long career of I crime he was never known to have shed ' human blood, and never to have robbed I or injured a woman.