"BENDIGO MAC."

Otago Witness, Issue 2363, 8 June 1899, Page 62

" BENDIGO MAC."

A GOLDFIELD CELEBRITY.

THE MAN AND HIS METHODS,

It was in 1853, when the yields of gold on Bendigo had become sensational, when the diggers' agitation against high license

fees was at fever heat, and when hundreds

of criminals had flocked to Bendigo ready to take advantage of any excitement as a pretext for plunder, that Lachlan

MacLachlan — afterwards known all over Victoria as "Bendigo Mac" — made his appearance on the diggings as police magistrate. He was a New Zealander, and must have had some influence with the Maoris, as fLowii by an incident which occurred

soon after his arrival,

Throckmorton's Maoris were well known in those clays, for Throckmorton was a man who, on finding rich ground on the Ben-

digo side of Eaglehawk Gully, did nofc waste time by washing up the &tuff at once,

but had it piled by his Maoris in great

stacks of 30i't and 40ft in height. Then, when the rush was over and all ground Avorked out, he started on his stacks, and washed a fortune out of them. One day in the midst of the Red Ribbon disturbances, the whole of the Maoris — most of whom had been sailors on whaling vessels — marched in military order to the camp, and, through Bendigo Mac, who acted as interpreter, offered their services as fighting men in the event of an insurrection. They were in deadly earnest,

especially when some old Pontac, which no

one else would drink, had been served out to them in jugs. There was never any

need of the Maori legion on Bendigo, or it might have oeen as hard to find as Vern's German legion at Eureka. From the first day of his appearance on the bench Bendigo Mac was hated for his severity by the scum of the diggings. In a little while the hatred was tinged With fear. Later the fear intensified almost to a superstitious horror, so mysterious v ere the means by which this man, whom r>cne of them had seen before, could tell them the miserable story of their misspent lives. Not John Price himself was more unerring in his identification of an old " lag " with a lurid record, nor more grimly deliberate in the infliction of a penalty. The identification of Vandemonian, which became a craze with Bendigo Mac, won him a name and reputation. Bendigo Mac had a marvellous memory. The sight of a man -whom he had once known, recalled, it was said, every incident of that man's history as accurately as though, read from the book of doom. The recording angel could not have been more exact. It was a wonderful gift — invaluable to a police magistrate on a new goldfield. How the reputation was won let a dialogue show : —

" Sergeant O'Neil to see you, sor." It was his old- Irish soldier-servant who brought the message to Bendigo Mac. " Come in, sergeant. Try a drop of whisky. Well! who have you got?" " ' Billy the Nut,' sor." '"Billy the Nut!' Who's he."

" Wan o' the M'lvor road gang, sor ; imd a bad man at that." " Know anything of him, sergeant ? Anything of his convictions." " Vis, sor. I know him well. Comes from the other side. Won o' the Point Peur boys. Has- his ticket o' lave from Port .Arthur. Was sint .out for manslaughter. Fought wid another "man in

Ratcliffetown, and killed him .wid a chanst blow. The ould thing — trouble about a woman. Kern out be the Frederick the Great — third trip. Was in throuble beyant, and had his sintince extinded. A dangerous man. His real name is William Johnson, but he's known here as William

Don." - " Thank you, sergeant. Much obliged to you. Good night." And Bendigo Mac made careful note of the information. Next morning William Don, alias " Billy the Nut," appeared before Lachlan MacLacnlan, P.M., at the Bendigo Police Court, the officials on Camp Hill making it a practice to attend court as often as possible "just to see Mac act." On the name William Don, alias " Billy the Nut,"' being called, the acting commenced. As the prisoner stepped to the bar the P.M. would give a slight start, a second qviick glance, and then stare hard at the ceiling for a few moments, his forefinger on his left temple — a favourite stage mannerism The regular attendants at the court knew the routine, and waited with some eagerness for the sequel. The man with the alias of " Billy the Nut " either glaied at Bendigo Mac with defiance in his face or shifted uneasily and trembled at the knees, just as his emotions took him. When the formal charge was made the P.M. rarely heard it. He was abstracted. His memory — that wonderful memory of which the goldfields' journals so often spoke, until they found out the secret of it — was turning over pa^e after page of the prison records of Port Arthur. You could see all that in the P.M.'s attitude. Every action was so illuminative. At last the remarkable memory discovered William Don's page in the history of crime, and again the P.M. dramatically started. All in court were watching him, none with deeper interest apparently than Sergeant Simon O'Neil, who would occasionally whisper to a reporter, "His Worship knows somethin' uv this man, depind upon it. He has a very remarkable mimory." Bendigo Mac, having in dramatic pantomime searched the cells of memory and found William Don, took up the heavy gold pince-nez that hung from his neck by a broad watered silk ribbon, wiped the crystals, fixed them very, very slowly across the bridge of his nose, threw back his head, and took a long, deliberate scrutiny of the prisoner. Sometimes the man's nerve gave way under the strain, sometimes his temper. Then he cursed Bendigo Mac with a heartiness that was in no sense artificial, consigned him to depths more unpleasant even' than those the accused had himself dumbed in the prisons

of Port Artnur, and was sometimes gagged to close his blasphemous mouth. He could not know, of course, that Mr Lachlan MacLachlan's eyesight was equal to that of any man on Bendigo, and that the only things he could not see through were his splendid pince-nez. As theatrical properties, though, they were admirable. Scarcely a Vandemonian on Bendigo but believed implicitly that the magic glasses could see right into his heart as easily as the X-rays might do it tc-day. Having completed his nerve-trying inspection, Bendigo Mac would call out, " Sei«geant O'Neil, turn — that — man — round." There was another magisterial inspection of the back of the prisoner's head, and then the climax. " Ha ! I thought so. I think I know Mr William Don, alias 'Billy the Nut.' One of the Point Pern- boys,' if I am not greatly mistaken. Transported to Van Di'emen's Land in 18— for killing a man on Ratclift'e Highway. Sent out by the Frederick the Great — third trip. A bad character at Porfc Arthur. Your real name is not William Don, but William Johnson. You cannot deceive me, you scoundrel."

Sometimes the old hand spoiled the piece by a premature confession. He felt so certain that Bendigo Mac knew all about him that it was not worth while going through an ordeal with an inevitable ending.

Thus" Bendicro Mac and his methods became a terror to every man on Bendigo with a past. " What was he on the other side?" they would whisper. "Where was he, and for heaven's sake tell me how does he know us by the back of our heads? There was the Lurcher, on Monday, got through with a five-shilling fine, and he one of the worst of us. If Bendigo Mac liad looked at the back of his head he was a gone man." «

The facts were, of course, that the Lurcher had the luck to be one of the few whom Sergeant Simon O'Neil had not encountered at the back of Eaglehav.k Neck. And while in the box the Lurcher had prayed, in his own way, that Bendigo Mac might not ask to see the back of his head, a thing the P.M. rarely did, unless he had a carefully-rehearsed discovery to make. The exceptions were cases where men were suspected of being ticket-of-leave, but against whom there was nothing very definite known. To these he would, after the usual back-of-the-tead inspection, say, " I know you, but for this once only I shall keep that knowledge to myself. I intend to give you a chance. This goldfield is not big enough for both you and me. One of us has to leave it. Which shall it be?'.-

The prisoner rarely had any difficulty in answering the' question." I've been getting out some dirt," .he would plead ; " Gimme a day or two to wash it up and I'm away."

'' You can have two days. If after that you are still on Bendigo I know enough to serd you where your company is desired more ' than it is here. Sergeant Richards, see that this man is off Bendigo in 48 hours. If not bring him before me." Sergeant Richards had rarely any further trouble in the case.

Tiiese tactics were largely justified by the character of the men with whom Bendigo Mac had to deal. Men who had run away from their ticket-of-leave in Tasmania thronged the diggings. They would dare much, were cunning as criminals, but ignorant and superstitious. Of the man who could read their past as though it was an open book they had a pagan dread. Many men with a pasc who would otherAvise have gone to Bendigo shunned it because of its P.M. Some, who went there ignorant of his "powers and reputation, heard of them and left hurriedly for " fresh woods and pastures new." Many avlio remained, anxious perhaps for honest work, so shaped their actions that they could by no chance come within the range of Bendigo Mac's terrible eye-glass. Possibly some had thus the first impulse to " rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things." In either case it was a good thing for Bendigo. though a little unfair, perhaps, to other diggings.

Sly grog-selling was one of the most common of the offences v/ith which the police and the bench had to deal, and though the horrible stuff sold in many of the shanties was a poison as deadly in its effects as arsenic — if a trifle slower — the majority of the diggers sympathised with the sly grog-sellers, and rarely gave the police a hint, excepting when it was desired to put them off a trail that was becoming hot. One. Biddy Malone, who had tl-e gift of " the brogue and the blarney, and bothering ways," sold her " sudden death " for many a clay before David Armstrong — the well-named, for he was one of the strongest men on the diggings — discovered her secret. Another man, known as the Doctor, practised several professions, and annoyed Bendigo Mac especially with the success of his sly grog branch. As the P.M. rode on his nuggety cob amongst the claims the Doctor would pass him with a sneering smile on his face. It was !nd business to taunt Bendigo Mac, even in this negative way. His Worship called in a police officer. " The Doctor is sly grogselling, and laughing in my face. You've failed to catch him in your way, now Iry my plan. Disguise one of the new men as a digger. Let him go down to ha\e a tooth drawn. He can pretend that he's funking it, and ask the Doctor to wait till he goes over to the hotel for a stiff brandy to brace up his nerves. Jf tLt Doctor doesn't bite, then I'm mistaken. '"

The Doctor did bit, was hooked, and came before Bendigo Mac, who fined him £50 and ordered him to leave the district. " You are not smiling to-day, Doctor," the Bench observed. " Come now, have a smile with me." But the Doctor had mislaid his smile, and also his manners.

For 18 years Mr Lachlan MacLachlan sat upon the Bendigo Bench, and on, the 53 st of May, 1871, he presided for the last time. In the following month the citizens of Bendigo — who, in the quiet times following upon the gold fever, found him an able, though always a quaint, magistrate — said good-bye to him, and presented him with a purse of 700 sovereigns. " I always thought we- should hay« had the jibaaiurft

T)f burying you on Bendigo," "said an o!3 lady, who came to see -Mm "off. Many a, scoundrel in the early days of I^endigo expressed the same tiling, with quite another meaning. Those who are threatened live long, and though Bendigo Mac had often need for apprehension, he was only . once attacked, and then by a drunken digger, whom he held until the police came and took charge of him. Bendigo Mac died 14 years ago at the 'age of 76. Sergeant Simon O'Neil, the real man with a jnemory, died in Geelong in 1869.