Wieberg’s Five Thousand

Southland Times, Issue 13671, 5 February 1897, Page 3

Wieberg’s Five Thousand

The handy package of 5000 sovereigns used in shipping gold has (says the Argus) ever been a temptation to ingenious and daring thieves. The robbery from the Oceana is the fourth of these SCOO coups perpetrated within the last 20 years. The first and decidedly the most sensational was that known for years as the Avoca gold robbery, although it was really perpetrated on board the R.M.S. China on her voyage to Galle, where the gold, which had been brought from Sydney by thes.s. Avoca and transferred to the China, was first missed. As the keys were guarded, and the doors of the |gold-room had pot been interfered with, it was at first thought that the case had been mislaid in Melbourne or left on the Avoca, but it was afterwards found that the seals on the box had been cleverly cut, the sovereigns removed from it, and the box again closed. Although it was thought at the time that the only entrance to the gold-room was through the doofs, it was shown afterwards that it might be entered from the orlop deck, to which Martin Wieberg, the .carpenter of the China, had frequent access. Nothing could be found to connect him with the crime, but he was discharged from the ship, and took an early opportunity of returning to Melbourne, where he married a barmaid and took up a selection in the thick shrub on the Tarwin river. Wieberg, although he proved himself later on daring almost to the verge of heroism, was vain of his exploits, and boasted of his success to some of the settlers on the Tarwin, and it was no doubt information secretly received from some of his friends that induced the police to pay him a visit. He was arrested, and in various ingenious plants,one being an auger hole bored into the trunk of a tree, some 200 sovereigns in all were discovered corresponding with those stolen, which all had for the reverse a wreath instead of the St. George and the dragoon stamp. Wieberg was brought up to Melbourne for trial, and, in a moment of apparent repentance, confessed his guilt, and offered to show the police where a parcel of 1700 or 1800 sovereigns were sunk in the Tarwin river. There is every reason to believe that Wieberg on this occasion partly described the actual hiding-place, for his description of the spot when in gaol was found to correspond in detail to the locality to which he afterwards took the police. Wieberg stated that he had sealed up the sovereigns in a tin kettle, and sunk them at a point between a conspicuous gum tree on one bank and a clump of tea-tree on the other. These were found by the three detectives who accompanied Wieberg. While they were dragging the mud for the gold Wieberg at first worked like a nigger, and was apparently as eager as the police to recover the spoil. One day, while two of the detectives were in the boat and a third on .shore with Wieberg, the robber suddenly dealt the officer beside him a terrific blow in the pit of the stomach, and made a dash for the scrub. One of the detectives tried to stop him with a shot, but the revolver missed fire. The other—one of the fastest runners in Victoria—partly recovering from the blow, started in pursuit, but Wieberg, haying reached the scrub, was safe, and for some months nothing more was heard of him. Later the police learned that he had sent a sum of nearly one thousand sovereigns to Melbourne to purchase a vessel called the Spray, and this money was found secreted in a house in one of the Melbourne suburbs, and was seized. In May, 1879, Detective Edelsten and Senior-con-stable Taylor determined to try and capture Wieberg, who was believed to be in hiding

near Anderson’s Inlet. They dressed in 1 rough bush clothing, with slouch hats and Bwags, and tramped through the scrub, Buffering much hardship from exposure and short rations before they were successful. Ono day, walking along the shore of the inlet, they were, like Robinson Crusoe, brought to a standstill by the print of a man’s naked foot leading from the water to the scrub, and further search showed other tracks back to the water, and apparently the fresher of the two. Although the inlet was a mile and a half wide at that point, and believed to swarm with sharks, the police had proof of Wieberg’s daring, and believed that he would swim it. (They determined to search the other shore of the inlet, and having obtained horses had a thirty miles ride round. On the evening after their arrival they saw a man at a distance approaching them, and hid behind trees. It was Wieberg, who, getting .within fifty yards of them, caught a glimpse of one of the officers, and immediately made a dash for the water, jumping down a cliff some 14 feet high to reach it. Edelston and Taylor got within range before he could swim far, and both fired, Taylor’s bullet cutting the water about a foot in front of him, and this so startled the robber, tine as was his nerve, that he at once turned shoreward again, shouting “I give up,” The arrest took place close to the high rocks on Mount Patterson, known as the Eagle’s Nest. Wieberg afterwards boasted of his cleverness in blotting out his tracks, and said it was his custom when walking along the shore to do so only at low water, and the next rising tide blotted away all traces. The plants chosen by him were unique, a servant girl, who lived with Wieberg and his wife, stating at the trial that she once discovered a lot of sovereigns planted in a bar of soap. Wieberg got five years for the theft, and having served it returned to Gippsland. He was known afterwards to have bought a boat, subsequently found capsized at sea. Thus the daring gold robber, who for a time was in the eyes of the criminal classes a hero second in importance only to the blood guilty Kelly gang, was no sooner free than the fate he had so often dared in swimming Anderson’s Inlet overtook him, and the robber and possibly-his gold went down at sea. The particulars of his death were vague enough to establish in many minds the conviction that Wieberg lived and got away with a share of the spoil, for little more than a thousand sovereigns in all were recovered.