A BUSHRANGING INCIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6828, 5 October 1883, Page 6

A BUSHRANGING INCIDENT.

A tale of busb ranging in the year 1857 was related in the Central Police Court, Sydney, on Friday last;, where a prisoner named John Connell, alias Norri°, was charged with having in that year stolen at Heywood, Victoria, from a police officer, two horse pistols. In that year the accused and another prisoner were arrested on a charge of highway robbery, they having "stuck-up" a Mr. Swan. They were escorted from where they were arrested to the police station at Mount Eckeraley, and there given into charge of the officer of the station, who next morning at four o'clock gave them over to the sergeant and constable forming the escort. About an hour afterwards a noise of firearms was heard by the man in charge of the police station, and going out, ho fonnd one of the two prisoners standing at the door and presenting a pistol, he having managed to get possession of two horse pistols which had been left upon a table in the'room in which both prisoners—who had been handcuffed—were oonfined. The sergeant asked for some ammunition, and the man in charge went to the barrack room to get it, but when he returned the prisoner had escaped. A few weeks back the accused was arrested on another charge, and then identified as the man who, in 1857, had stolen (as the charge states) " two horse pistols, the property of Her Majesty." Aa the offence was committed in Victoria, the accused was remanded to gaol, to await his return to that colony.