AUSTRALIAN OUTLAWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7541, 25 October 1902, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN OUTLAWS.

BUSHRANGERS OF A BYEGONE DAY. [All Bights Reserved.] CHAPTER V.— (Continued.) WILLIAMS AND FLANAGAN. Williams and Flanagan were old Van Demonian convict'?. They were drawn to Port Phillip, or, Victoria, as it was then being called in official circles, by the gold discovery, but, being averse to dig themselves and no doubt ashamed to beg, they sought to make an easy living by taking%vbat others had earned. Their impudence and daring ■were conspicuously exemplified by a series of highway robberies on the St Kilda Koad. On a Saturday afternoon, Oct. 16, 1852, in the clear light of a bright summer day, these two bushrangers kept? possession of this important thoroughfare for about two hours and a half, sticking up every passenger who appeared. About thirty victimj were secured, and robbed of everything of value. The modus operandi was described by Mr William Keel and Mr Win, Robinson, two of the gentlemen robbed. As they were driving along the road from. Melbourne towards Brighton, where they resided, they observed two men some distance in front, carrying guns and occasionally looking up into the trees on the roadside, as if in search of birds. As Messrs Keel and Robinson came up, however, they walked into j the middle of the road and presented their muskets, calling out, "Keep stilly or we will blow your brains out." This was sup^ i posacVto be a joke, so little was such a renj contre anticipated in such a locality ; but | j it was soon found to be serious earnest. I I The gentlemen were unarmed, and could | not resist ; they were at once compelled to drive off the- road into the bush, where they could- not be seen by passers-by. Here they were, required to hand over their money, which they did to the amount of £23 and £46 respectively. They were then taken into a piece of scrub, tied together, hand to hand, with part of a hempen halter cub for the purpose, and ordered to sit down. They found themselves in the company of a; number of other unfortunates, watched over by two armed confederates, who were ready to fire on the prisoners, should they make, the slightest movement. "Keep them close together," said one of the desperadoes, "so that, when you fire, if you miss one, you'll 'hit another." The men who had robbed Messrs Keel and Robinson then went back to the road, but made frequent returns to the scrub •with new victims. Among these were Mr and Mrs Bawtree, Mr Larman, Mr Striker and other well-known and wealthy colonY ists. A gentleman of the name of Moody w.as the only passenger that escaped, the bushrangers while they held control of the thoroughfare. The two robbers were at some distanoe from Mr Moody, when they called on him to stop, but instead of doing so he clapped 1 spurs- to his horse and galloped off. Two shots were ineffectually fired after him. Mr and Mrs Bawtree were subjected to the rudest treatment, the villains, although remonstrated with, continuing to ti«e the most abominable language, undeterred 1 by the presence of the lady, whose pockets they insisted on searching. They were doubtless a liftle aggravated on finding that Mr Bawtree carried no money with him. Soon after Mr Moody's escape the four bushrangers, probably fearing that he ] might raise a " hue and cry," mounted their horses, which were in the scrub ; and their victims soon after left the scene of their imprisonment. Before information reach the authorities, the robbers had made good their retreat. The Melbourne detectives were, however, well up to their work, I and succeeded where the ordinary troopers fsrled. We may let one of them tell his ovvn tale : — "As the bushrangers had made no atj tempt to uhguise their appearance, we got a full description of their personnel, which I could identify as that of some well-known old hands, distinguished by oil the audacity necessary for such an exploit. We learned a day or two after the St Kilda Road affair" that four bushrangers, who had been practising their profession at Bacchus Marsh, had been seen in that locality by a trooper; and their description corresponded with that of the heroes of Oct. 16. A little later we got information of four diggers, on their way from Bendigo to Melbourne, being robbed at Aitken's Gap by what seemed to He the same band of bush- ! rangers. On& of them was relieved of four nuggets and £23, and another, named Whelan, was, among other, things, deprived of a pistol which he carried. " As they had enjoyed a successful campaign, we began to anticipate the early appearance of the robbers in Melbourne, where they might, through their ill-gotten gain, enjoy for a time the sweets of dissipation, or, more probably, attempt to skip for some other locality, as their victims in Victoria were too numerous to render their continued residence in. this colony prudent or advisable. The usual precautions, which I have already described, in connection with other cases, were taken to secure the arrest of the mien by watching the approaches to the city. In town, I and others did not despair of finding them, perhaps on our ground, and, as anticipated, two of the men dr-opped into our hands as a party of us were, according to our wont at that lawless period, patrolling- the streets at night. A little after mfdnight, white we were in Flinders Lane, we observed two horremen approachim; — a suspicious circumstance at such an hour in that locality — we resolved to accost them, and got them to stop by asking a question' on some irrelevant and unimportant subject, when we gob up close to them. Their appearance, if not incompatible with innocent pursuits, was such as usually distinguishes the criminal ; I could recognise the one I itcod beside as an old convict ; their answers to our questions were suspiciously evasive — they were evidently impatient, of delay. In short, we felt assured that they would not suffer much from being overhauled at the watchhouse, and, accordingly, at an understood' signal, acting simultaneously, we hurled them from the : .r saddles, and," in an instant, they were handcuffed and secured. '■When faken to the watchhouse, their efffcts made rather a respectable appearance. One of ihem, Thomas Williams, had £55 in sovereigns and notes, a nugget, a bundle of clothes and a pair of fowls, with which the unlucky rascals had probably anticipated making a comfortable supper, but they were d-estined to feed a more honest man, for the detective who searched Williams, afterwards, under cro«s-px-anv^iatirn, amid the laushter of the Court, said he had consumed th. 1 poultry, and that 'they were very good.' On t'hp other man, John Flanagan, we found £47 10s. Ench hrul a, pair of heavily-loaded pistols, which convinced us that tlie precautions we u?ed in securing our nrisoncrs were not unnecessary. One of Hie pisKls was identified by Whelan as his property. " Both men were sworn to as being; two of the four St Kild.i Boid rohbers 'by several of the men who had fallen victims to tlieir audacity. They were likewise i^entifiod as tlie men who had robbed Aitken's Hyp. They were found guilty, and each received thwe cumulative sentences, which, in all. amounted to thirty years' hard labour on the roads, a considerable

portion of the time in irons. Both were old convicts who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land from England during the transportation v era. Even in durance, the ' wicked ' Williams -would not cease from, troubling,' but took a prominent part in» the murder of Mr Price, for which 'he was 1 executed, and it is to be hoped that he is 'now at peace.' . ■ • " Of .the fate of their companions in the St Kilda Read bushranging, I remember nothing; but, probably, they were soon brought 'before their betters' for some other crime." THE BLACKSMITH BUSHRANGER. William Day was an old convict, sent to Van Diemen's Land fr-om the old country under a (heavy ser snee. Haying gained his liberty, he made his way to New South Wales, and joined a motley crowd oil the "rush" to the Tiron goldfields. He settled at Sofala, where between blacksmith ing and fossicking he managed to live in comparative comfort, it being generally understood in the ' locality . that he had amassed quite a little fortune. But the old instinct was still apparently strong within him; he joined a man named Wilson, alias Doyle, with whom he shared an unenviable reputation on the diggingsit being currently believed that one or both of them had .been concerned in the murder of Trooper Codrington on the Bath-urst-Turon road some time ,befbre — and the pair set out on a journey across the mountains. ■ ■ .. In the mail coach on its journey from Bathursfc to Sydney in June, 1859, there were only two passengers, one of them no less a. personage than the Hon L. H. Bayley, Attorney-General for the colony, who was returning to Sydney from circuit work in the west ; but the mail bag's contained nearly £5000 in bills, cheques, notes and cash, sent from the country banks to headquarters, or from country business men to Sydney merchants. The mail was slowly ascending one of the long hills nearing Mount Victoria, on the Blue Mountains, the two passengers walking some distance in advance, as was the custom, 1 when suddenly the driver, William Andill, who was at the horses' heads, was startled by the appearance of Day with a gun, and a peremptory order to stop. The unarmed driver could but obey, for the hill was too steep to permit of escape. The next order was "Chuck out the,maalbags." "I must not do that," said Andill, " if you want them you must take them yourself." All 4his time the bushranger, who had a piece Of blanket or bag over his head, with a hole cut in it to see through, kept his double-barelled gun presented. Three times he repeated the order, and was disobeyed : at last he said, " I have asked you three times: I don't want to shoot or murder you ; but, by God, if you don't give me the bags I will." ArkUU then got upon the box and threw the bags out, the gun being pointed at his head the whole time. When all the bags were on the road in a heap, Day, still keeping his gun at the " ready," and with a large horse-pistol sticking out prominently from his. belt, ordered the driver to proceed. Without waiting for a second bidding he did so, and, ] reaching his two passengers, pulled up and [ informed them excitedly that he had been robbed. " Yes,", answered the AttorneyGeneral, "we saw it all." The bushranger, who still kept his gun levelled in their direction, then threatened that .if they did not move on at .once he would shoot themj thejr, -.^hurriedly climhftk into their seats, the driver gathered up the. reins and pushed his well-rested steeds forward on the hilly road. At the time of the "sticking-up" there was a road-party working on the mountain road, a few hundred yards distant, buti they did not take any notice of wha/ti was going on ; about a mile further on the road was a company of about a hundred Chinamen, travelling from Sydney to the Turon diggings. But tthe bushranger had done his work before they arrived on tha scene ; and it is not likely that they would have interfered had they arrived in time, seeing that they were all " new chums," and altogether ignorant of English. The Chinese in those days were frequently to be met with travelling in hoTdes ; they trotted -along the road in single file, with huge mushroom hats, baggy trousers and sandals of every conceivable pattern, balancing their basket-poles on their shoulders and jabbering cheerfully to each other as they jogged. Passing this crowd of gold-hunters, the driver tooled his team to the toll-bar on the road, about a mile distant, where information of the robbery was given to the keeper, Mr Shepherd, and then, the coach proceeded on its way to Hartley, where there was a police station. Several mounted 1 troopers happened to be at Hartley at the time, and Andill conducted tShem to the spot where the robbery had taken place; but the bushranger had disappeared and left no tracks. (To be continued on Wednesday).