CLERICAL BUSHRANGER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

CLERICAL BUSHRANGER.

CAPTAIN MQONLITE'S DEEDS.

LAWLESS, LIFE IN AUSTRALIA.

SOME DRAMATIC EPISODES. ■ The modest ' little - tuck shop with its substantial folding shutters, which stands opposite the Dana Street State School, Ballarat, was at one time the centre of a dramatic incident. It was the original Union Bank which years ago was removed from Mount Egerton. This is the bank that was the scene of Captain Moonlite's stirring bushranging adventures. Henry Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, was at the time a Church of England whose headquarters were at Mount Egerton. He was a well-educated man, and a fluent, forcible speaker, beloved by the whole district both for his pleasing personality and his gallantry. One night a masked man walked into the living-room behind the bank and ordered the manager, "who was atone at the time, to bail up. The manager, who was on most friendly terms with the clergyman, at once recognised his voice, and asked the

| intruder whether this was a suitable i practical joke «for a clergyman. He j threatened to shoot the manager unless he surrendered and obeyed his commands. Life of Wealthy' Tourist. Scott gagged him and took him across to the school house, and forced him to sign the following statement:—"Captain Moonlite has struck me and robbed the bank." Scott then took the. manager back to the bank, bound him hand and foot, and then helped himself to a thousand pounds in notes and gold. On the following day the schoolmaster found the paper. He handed it to the police, who, on going to the bank, found the manager bound and gagged. All considered the bank manager's story about fthe clergyman too absurd ana ridiculous to be true. - ' The manager arid the schoolmaster were both arrested and tried for being jointly concerned in the crime. Henry Scott was very active in trying to find incriminating evidence against his two friends. Both were committed for trial. But on account of insufficient evidence the case broke 'down. — s '■ Just before the trial ■ Scott disappeared from Egerton. He went to Sydney. Here he spent money freely, (jutting up at a lea'ding hotel. He represented himself as a wealthy tourist travelling over Australia. He purchased a yacht, and after passing a number of valueless cheques he set sail for the South Sea Islands. '

Gang Finally Broken Up. He was taken back on the charge of forgery and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. When released ho was sentenced to 10 years for the Egerton robbery. , He escaped from the Ballarat Gaol in a /most daring'and adventurous manner, but he Was recaptured. When in prison he behaved so well that he was. allowed a remission for good conduct. After hi 3 release he made a living by lecturing on prison reform. One day he disappeared from his old haunts. His imagination had been fired by reading of the actions of the Kelly Gang. He soon managed to gather around him a gang of desperadoes, r and after many lawless acts of looting and bushranging the police managed to break up the gang, after a terrible fray in which a policeman and a bushranger were killed. Captain Moonlite and one other of the gang were hanged at Dariinghurst Gaol. He was then in his 37th year. ,