Thrilling Days in Early South Canterbury

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20105, 11 May 1935, Page 12

Thrilling Days in Early South Canterbury

PASTORAL CALM DISTURBED BY DEPREDATIONS OF DARING SHEEP STEALER

Specially Written Second Article When Mr Sidebottom and the two Maori boys, Taiko and Seventeen, caught up with Mackenzie near the pass that bears his name, the sheep stealer was preparing to sleep for the night. Capture seemed to be the last thing he expected. Taken by surprise his hands were soon tied. The captors were tired because they had travelled quite a long way over rugged country, so they had a rough meal and rested. The prisoner’s hands were untied, but as a precaution, his boots were taken away from him. “After we had stopped about two hours,” to quote Mr Sidebottom, “we heard some suspicious calls. The dogs began to growl and the sheep broke camp. Mackenzie started up and began whistling and cooeeing. I had to force him down again, and told him to lie still or I should be under the painful necessity of administering a back poultice to his head.” Under such circumstances, it did not seem safe to remain, “as the two Maoris were positively worse thaii nobody.”

The captive was told to load his pack bullock —iris animal pantechnicon which has become legendary—and at 10 o’clock In the moonlight, the captors and their prisoner began a slow journey back towards civilisation. Seventeen walked at Mackenzie’s side, with a huge stick which he had orders to use if the prisoner tried to escape. As they climbed a hill the log thickened, and Mr Sidebottom found it difficult to drive the sheep; he had to move away about 50 yards in order to turn them up the hill. It was then that Mackenzie found an opportunity to escape. He turned suddenly and bolted into the fog. Seventeen found him olice and held him for a few moments, but as he was afraid and not strong enough, the captive soon vanished. Travelled Night and Day Very much disheartened and afraid I that Mackenzie would return with mates and capture his belongings, the trio thought it safer to continue on their journey. Driving the sheep and leading Mackenzie’s bullock and dog, they travelled all that night and all the next day. Then Mr Sidebottom left the sheep camped about five miles from Cave, and rode on to the Levels station, ’there he wrote a letter to Mr Rhodes at Purau and sent it, so it would appear, with one of the Maori boys. “I should wish you to send down some pistols and bullet-moulds,” he wrote in a postscript, “as I do not think it safe, while these men are about, leaving Cave without firearms. Nor would I follow men again without pistols myself.” Mr Rhodes received the letter in about six days, and that was remarkable time considering the desolate country that had to be travelled. He immediately communicated with the police and offered, through a newspaper advertisement, a reward of £250 for the apprehension of Mackenzie and his accomplices. Sergeant E. W. Seager was in charge of the Lyttelton police station in those days, and he suspected that the sheep stealer would make a dash to the port and attempt to escape in an out going boat. With that idea, Mr Seager disguised himself as a “shagroon” and searched the shipping in port and the hotels and accommodation houses; but the search yielded no result. As a last thought he decided to search a small ramshackle building between London Street and Norwick Quay, for It had previously housed doubtful characters. Above two stnall rooms, the place had a loft which was reached by a flight of stairs outside. Mackenzie Arrested It was about 11.30 p.m. when Mr Seager went to the shack, and he asked the landlady if she had a certain Frenchman boarding with her. So as not to arouse her suspicions, he gave a description of a man quite unlike Mackenzie. The woman strongly denied that she had such a lodger. There was, she said, a man living in the loft, but he was heavily built and had red hair. Being almost sure that the boarder was Mackenzie, Mr Seager went back to the police station and picked up two good men, Lander and Hurry. The three returned to the house, and instructing his companions to go to his assistance when he called '‘you are the man,” Mr Seager mounted the stairs leading to the loft. He found himself in a small dark room under a gable roof and at the far end a candle burned, and in one of the two bunks in the room, a man rested. He was silently watching every movement. “Hullo Jock,” said Mr Seager, “how did you get here?” The man made no reply, but continued to watch with ferret-like eyes. “Why surely you recollect me Jock? We met in Otago and afterwards in the back country.” “I dinna ken ye,” muttered Mackenzie, for it was the sheep stealer, and he started to move. “You are the man,” shouted the policeman and pointed his pistol. “I arrest you oh a charge of stealing sheep from the Levels station.” The sheep stealer was secutely handcuffed and led dff to gaol. When he was searched, no pistol was found on him, but he had powder and caps and a large clasp knife. That he was a man with a remarkably strong constitution was revealed by the fact that he travelled from the Mackenzie Country in one day less than the Maori boy.

/or "The Timaru Herald" by T. W. The captive was tried in the Magistrate’s Court at Lyttelton, on March 16, 1855, and from there he Was committed to the Supreme Court, which was held in the Lyttelton Town Hall, on April 12. Mr Justice Stephen heard the case. An official report of the trial states that the prisoner tried to evade the responsibility of his crime by “gesticulating” in Gaelic. The jury had to decide whether or not he could speak English; however after hearing ample evidence to prove that he could, it soon found him guilty of “mute of malice.” A plea of not guilty was entered for the major charge. Apart from other evidence, the fact that he was caught in the act, proved Mackenzie guilty of sheep stealing, and he was sentenced to five years’ hard labour. The Fate of the Dog A touching scene at the trial of Mackenzie Was caused by the presence of his dog, which recognised her master and crept Up to him and whined. Even for the stolidity of a sheep thief, that was too much, and he broke down and sobbed bitterly. The dog could be described as a typical animal belong-

•!♦ »> »!-»•♦?» »I» <s>*s* *!« <%+ *t-S»«S* 4* »> ♦?» *3* »> *> ing to a Highland shepherd; a dog faithful to its master alone. It did, however, possess more wisdom than the average dog of its type, and in the thieving work that it did for its owner, it must have displayed unusual intelligence. Earnestly in English, Mackenzie begged that the dog should be allowed to go to gaol With him, but that, of course,'was not permitted by the regulations. What ultimately happened to the dog is a matter oh which much has been said and written, and it seems to be generally thought that the aiiithal was shot by order of the Judge. Prom the newspaper reports of the trial, however, and from the official court records, there does not appear to be any evidence to support that contention. If the dog was shot, it might have been expected that the newspaper of the day Would have mentioned such an unusual order. Mr E. W. Seager, because he arrested Mackenzie and was present at the trial, should have been able to give a fairly authoritative opinion on the matter. To quote his words, “the clever animal was taken south, where for years her progeny was much sought after.”

Ewart . f Mr T. D. Burnett, M.P., who has amassed a great amount of reliable information about the early days in the Mackenzie Country, says that the dog 1 died of old age at the Levels station, and that he has a picture of the animal, at Tekapo House. Penchant for Escaping Four months of his sentence Mackenzie spent working in a prison gang that was forming Oxford Street in Lyttelton, and at the end of that period, he made his first escape. He bolted from the gang while working at the top of Mount Pleasant. Not for long was he free, however, as on the following day he was captured and put in gaol with 181 b. irons.

Within three months, the prisoner shook off his irons and made another escape. He made a dash for liberty up the Sumner Valley. Starvation no doubt brought him back to civilisation for he was recognised asking for food at an accommodation house. So With only a few days of freedom he was captured again. On that occasion his captors lashed him to a dray, but on the way to Christchurch, he slipped his bonds ill some remarkable way and made another dash for liberty. He was chased and called on to stop, but when he took no notice a policeman fired at him. A bullet hit him in the back and he fell. As a prisoner once more he spent a few weeks in hospital and was then returned to Lyttelton gaol in heavy irons.

In another four months, the sheep stqaler was put back in a working gang and he escaped again! After that escape he must have spent A sleepless and hungry period in the densely bush-clad Lyttelton hills. The thick bush which extended right to the water’s edge made his capture very difficult, because in those days scarcely a track entered it.

Mr Seager who was still in charge of the Lyttelton police station, made some arrangements with the Maori chiefs in the district to search for the escaped prisoner, and offered a reward of £lO for him, dead or alive. For a time, there was no result, but one day when the policeman happened to go outside the town to discover if any traces of the man had been found, he noticed a crowd of natives approaching him, and they were making a great noise. “All right, we have got the white man,” they yelled in Maori, “we are taking him to gaol. All right Mr Seager, we will get the money.” On a pole supported by four men, Mackenzie was well trussed with flax and covered with a dirty blanket, and until he was uncovered and released, he was almost unrecognisable. He was very far through. Conditional Pardon The Government decided that the sheep stealer Was a very expensive prisoner to keep, and on Jonuary 12, 1856, less than a year after his conviction, he was advised that provided he left the country, he would receive a pardon. Soon afterwards he sailed for Australia. It is said that he returned to New Zealand once, but soon left after a hint from the authorities interested. It is said too, that he died of old age in a bush-surrounded shack in Australia. But whether those stories are true is doubtful. After his departure from New Zealand all facts about Mackenzie’s career seem to be shrouded in the same mystery that surrounds the disposal of the sheep that he stole from Levels station.

Mackenzie was an explorer and in some respects, a pioneer; but he was also a sheep thief. And for that reason the indisputable hardships that he endured cannot be regarded in the light of the heroism that characterised the work of the early pioneers. Mackenzie underwent hardship not so much for the love of conquering almost insurmountable odds or for the love of progress, but with the hope of obtaining something for nothing—and that, as it always is, was an impossible nothing. It is correct that he inspired the earlier settlement of a land that has proved valuable to New Zealand, and has for that matter, proved the mettle of the early settlers in New Zealand. But for the sake of the true pioneers, it would scarcely be fair to regard Mackenzie the sheep stealer as a hero. In the Mackenzie Pass, Ml- T. D. Burnett has erected a stone bearing words which state that it marks the spot where Mackenzie was captured, and that commemoration would seem to be amply appropriate.