THE ARREST OF SULLIVAN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4295, 25 December 1874, Page 2

THE ARREST OF SULLIVAN.

FURTHER PARTICULARS. (From the Inglewood Advertiser, December 11.) The public mind was fully exercised on Wednesday evening by a rumor that the Retested Sullivan, notorious throughout the whole British Empire from his complicity with Burgess, Levy, and Kelly, in a series of dreadful murders on the West Coast of New Zealand about nine years ago, had been that morning arrested by the Wedderbum police. The general opinion expressed was that the fellow would never have the audacity to again set foot in a locality in which almost everyone was well acquainted with him, he having resided in the neighborhood several years previous to leaving for the scene of his misdeeds. Further inquiry, however, elicited the facts that Sullivan, under the name of Clarke, travelled from Sandhurst to Inglewood in the mail coach on Tuesday morning. He left the coach when within half a mile of the latter town, and appeal’s to have performed the rest of the journey on foot, for shortly after six o’clock Mr. Bastow, merchant, when driving to Wedderburn, passed a man since proved to be Sullivan, some two miles from Inglewood on the Wed-derburn-road. He was carrying a valise and hat-box across his shoulder, suspended on a stick, and upon Mr, Bastow approaching, signalled him to stop. He did so, and Sullivan then, apparently to find out if he was recognised by Mr. Bastow, to whom he was formerly known, asked him if he was on the Korong road. Mr, Bastow did not recognise him, and told him to keep on along the road he was then travelling. He apparently did so, as several persona afterwards saw him at different points on the road during the day. The rest of the story is supplied by the following letter from our Wedderbum correspondent ’.—“Sullivan found his way up to this township on Tuesday evening about nine or ten o’clock. The following day about noon, by one of those mysterious circumstances known only to the initiated, senior-Constable Colvin, with mounted Constable Killen, pounced on the quarry, in the house of his some time wife, and although a little excited at first the police officers, acting with judgment and earnestness that was highly creditable, reduced him to a calmer mood, and conveyed their prize through High-street to the lock-up, walking on either side. His ‘make-up’ was admirable, and bis light and buoyant gait proved that his health had not suffered by his long incarceration. He did not appear to suffer much humiliation by his parade through a town where ho was so well-known under different

circumstances, but be must have felt it. Considering that he has made his way successfully from England, via Sydney and Melbourne, to Wedderburu, without interruption, the police here deserve great credit.” lie is said to have made quite a distinguished appearance atWedderburn, having made his debut in a black dress suit and belltopper. We are informed that the authorities had three courses open to them, viz., to send him back again to New Zealand, to give him a certain time to leave the colony, or to sentence him to a term of three years’ imprisonment for having entered a country prohibited to him by the terms of the pardon granted to him by the New Zealand Government. His misdeeds are still very fresh in the minds of tho residents of the AVedderburn and Inglewood districts, and it is hoped that he will be dealt with in such a manmer as to preclude the possibility of any further annoyance from such a scoundrel.