THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam.” DUNEDIN, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1862. Shipping Intelligence.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22066, 23 September 1933, Page 5

THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam.” DUNEDIN, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1862. Shipping Intelligence.

SEVENTY-ONE YEARS AGO.

POET CHALMERS.— September 22nd. The Alfred Lemont was one of the barques seen from the Ocean Beach on Sunday. She reached the Port on Monday forenoon, and her passengers, numbering nearly 300, and the majority of them diggers, proceeded at once to town by the Samson. . . •

The subject'of the price of meat, and the effect of the pleuro-pneumonia restrictions upon the importation of cattle, has been exciting almost as lively attention in Tasmania as in Otago, notwithstanding that for a considerable time it has been permitted to import cattle, for slaughter only, from Port Albert, in Gipps Land, to Launceston. ... The proclamation respecting the admission of cattle from Gipps Laud has been amended, so as to confine the exemption to one port in Gipps Land, Port Albert. The Government of New South Wales are inviting competitive designs for a Public Free Library, for the erection of which £25,000 has been voted by Parliament. ...

DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO BREAK OUT OF THE CITY GAOL PLOT OF GARRATT & ANDERSON. Two attempts, evidently concerted, were made by prisoners to break out of the Dunedin Gaol, during the night of Sun-, day, but they fortunately failed. The main actors were the notorious Garratt, who is undergoing a sentence of twelve years’ imprisonment, for his daring outrages in the neighbourhood of Tuapeka last year, and his companion John Anderson, alias Burns, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Garratt is known to have vowed vengeance against the governor, Mr. Stoddart, on account of a change introduced at his suggestion; and there can be little doubt, that had the conspirators succeeded in getting out of their cells, blood would have been spilled pretty freely. . . . So far as can be ascertained, Garratt had no other instrument than a moderate-sized nail, which was bent so as to form a convenient pricker; but with this he loosened, and then contrived to remove a .large number of bricks from the lower portion of the wall, which is about 18in. thick. . . ■ . . . Anderson and his fellows —who. as far as can be discovered, had a nail precisely similar to that used by Garratt, and nothing more —set to work at the bottom of their wall and contrived to make a hole, through which they all passed into the adjoining cell. . . . . . Anderson and his mates had now to attack the outer wall, but this is of stone, and. of course, very substantial. . . . They cleared out the strong mortar and smaller stones over a space of about, three feet by two feet, leaving the outer facing stones exposed. But these stones are, fortunately, of considerable size, and the prisoners could not succeed in moving them. ... The Visiting Justices met at the gaol yesterday, and investigated the matter. Garratt, we believe, declared that he meant to get out as soon as he could, and to "wipe off a few old scores.” Anderson and Burgess claimed the whole blame,„or merit, of the attempt on their side. The others, they said, were forced to assist or be quiet. Garratt and Anderson were ordered to be ironed; the damage to the walls has been repaired; and so ends this chapter in the history of the would-be Jack Sheppard of Otago. It may be added that Burgess is under sentence for firing < at the police, after taking.part in a series of outrages at the diggings; He .has mors than three years to serve.