ATTEMPT TO ROB A BANK IN VICTORIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume I, Issue 5, 9 July 1864, Page 2

ATTEMPT TO ROB A BANK IN VICTORIA.

(From the Argus.) Our winter crop of street outrages has now produced a specimen unparallelled for cool insolence. The series has culminated m so bold a»4g&arefaced a crime, that wonder almost akin to admiration will be one of the first impressions made upon the mind. One of the next will take the form of a question — What next ? Soon after ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, a bank, situated m one of the busiest streets m the always busy municipality of Fitzroy, was actually entered by aimed men, and there more than one desperate struggle, as for life or death, was enacted within a few feet of the busy foot-passengers hurrying through George and Gertrude streets. At a quarter-past ten o'clock, on Tuesday morning, Mr. John Dowliug, manager of the English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered Bank, at the corner of the streets we have named, was standing behind the counter, and Mr. Grot, the ledger keeper, occupied a railed desk close at hand, when, a man entered, and walked straight to the private room beyond the counter. The astonished manager at once passed into the same room from a door behind the counter, and entered just as the stranger had passed through the other entrance. Mr. Dowling seized the intruder, who immediately threatened to blow his brains out. The two then commenced a desperate struggle, and Mr. Dowling cried aloud for assistance. Before the ledger keeper had time to leave his desk, two other men entered. One stood at the door to prevent aid being given, while the other walked up to the desk of the ledger keeper, presented a pistol at him, and commenced taking some gold and silver lying on the counter. Mr. Grut then seized him, and another struggle commenced similar to that which was going on m the bank-room between the manager and his assailant. The third man still stood at the door. After a desperate contest, during which Mr. Grut's face and neck were actually scorched and blackened by the pistol which his ruffianly assailant fired close to his head ; the robber, a stronger and heavier n»an than the ledger keeper, escaped into the street, together with his accomplice. Having given an alarm and barred the door, Mr. Grut hastened to the assistance of the manager. He meanwhile had obtained the aid of his brother, Mr. Thomas Dowling and the struggle w T as still going on. Mr. Thomas Dowling had been actually shot, though but slightly injured, by the robber. The latter had just got out a dagger when Mr. Grut arrived on the scene. This the ledger keeper endeavoured to take from him, but being cut m the hand, seized a heavy brass candlestick, with which he dealt the robber three heavy blows on the head. Further assistance now arrived, and the robber, profusely bleeding, ceased longer to

continue a struggle during which he had proved himself sufficiently audacious and reckless to dare any crime of blood or murder. Another of i the gang was captured during the afternoon, and it cannot be long before the others join their companions m the lock-up. It is naturally assiuned that this gang of ruffians is the same who f;t':aeked Mr. Bergiu's shopman and assistant m Flinders-street; and it is believed that they belong to a party of new arrivals from Western Australia. This extraordinary case affords at least one cause for congratulation. It shows m a remark, able manner the efficiency of our police force. If we have bold villians, like our brethern m New South Wales, we have also what they have not— a force of constabulary at least as bold, and sufficiently strong and energetic, to bring our criminals to justice — to check their growth ere they become a power m the state able to defy the law and its agents. Had this occurred m Syduey, probably no resistance, or at least no effectual resistance, would have been offered. The m" tended victims, panic stricked and paralysed by the presence of a power which there has proved itself superior to all law, would most likely have held m> their arms to be pinioned ; and had the robbers — contrary to any reasonable expectation —been captured, they m all likelihood would have been acquitted by a symx>athetic jury, amidst the applause of an admiring mob. Here, a few hours see them m the hands of the police; and it is not impossible that a couple of weeks may see them m the hands of the hangman. If the occurrence of this monstrous outrage testifies to the under-current of crime by which we are cursed, and which a pateraal home Government would have indefinitely increased, the quick seizure of its perpetrators manifests a state of civilisation, and a determination as well as a capacity to bring offenders to justice, of which so young a country may well be proud.