AN AMERICAN BUSHRANGER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XV, Issue 5335, 21 December 1878, Page 7

AN AMERICAN BUSHRANGER.

The j Vew York Herald gives a short account of the career and execution of a miscreant, named "Bill who received the richly earned reward of hia crimes at Giddintjs, Texas, on the 11th of October. Texas has been a sort of h>ppy hunting-ground for desperadoes for well nigh half-a-century, but this fellow seems to have been the worst ot' all the scoundrels who have haunted it. He was only 26 years of age ; yet from the time he was 14 years of age he was a murderer, and this not always from provocation, but more frequently from sheer love of wickedness. He seemed to lead a charmed life. When 10 he was pursued by a detachment of United states cavalry, who discharged, in vain, 40 i-hots after him. A soldier closed with him, but his pistol went off, killing the soldier, and he escaped. He was hauged by a body of regulars, aud as he did not seem to die quickly enough for their taste they fired two revolver shots at him. One struck a belt lined with gold pieces, the other shot cut two strands of the rope, and a lad coming up so.in after cut him down and rescued him. More than once he made sham surrenders to enable confederates to obtain rewards of §1,000 and $1500 offered for his capture. When the reward was secured he contrived with their connivance to get off. Of course, he could never settle anywhere, as much because of his own restless disposition as on account of the pursuit of justice. He wandered all over Texas and the adjoining States, travelling into the wild regions of tha West, robbiDg plundering, aud murdering as he went along. Once, while keeping a bar-rcom for miners in the Big Horn Mountains, he and eight companions went out on a hunting excursion and were caught in a snow-storm. Three of them were frozen to death, and he had to keep his bed for five months, but finally recovered. His last performance was the shooting of a man named AndersoD, who, he heard, had killed his cousin. He walked up to the man as he was working in a field and shot him dead. This was his thirty-second wellauthenticated murder. It was committed on the 31st of March, 1875, but various delays and legal artifices have prevented his execution till the other day, more than three years and a half after the crime. On the scaffold he conducted himself with some bravado; but he accepted the assistance of a clergyman, and made a short speech which may be interpreted as expressing regret for his awful deeds. He acknowledged that he deserved his fate, and asked all to forgive him.