FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7678, 11 April 1903, Page 4

FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGERS.

THE KELLY GANG. I THEIR SENSATIONAL CAREER L ■ j' (By ROGER POCOCK.) >■ , It is at merit t>o love dumb animals, but- ? to steal them is an excess of virtue whichi " is sure to cause trouble with the police. I All Australians have a passion for horses, \ but (twenty years Ago the Australian bush- ■ men developed such a mania for horse- - stealing that, tihe mounted police were fair- > ly run off their legs. The feeling between y bus-hmeoi and police became so exceeding bitter that in 1878 a oonsitable, attempting, to make arrests, was beset and wounded. The fight took place in the bouse of a MrKelly, who got penal servitude, whereas her l sons, Ned and Dan, who did the actual! ■' shooting, escaped to the bills. A hundred! ' pound, rewaxd .was offered for their arnest. Both of Mrs Kelly's sons wero tainted, bora and raised toieves. At the age of sixteen Ned' had served an apprenticetihip in robbery under aams with Power, the oushranigeir, who described • him as a cowardly young brute. Now, in his twenty-fifth year, ne was fair from brave. Dan z aged seventeen, was a ferocious young woli, but mainly. As the hrothers lurked in hiding they Av-ere joined by Joe Byrne, aged twem'tiyone, a gallant aind sweet-tempered lad gone wrodi^r, and by Steve Hairt, a despicaible litnle cur. All fmur were superb as riders,, scouts aiad bushmen, fairly good shots, intimate wjfh every inch of tne country, supported by hundreds of kinsmen and tbe sympathy oi the people generally in the waa* they had declared against the police. In Oui/ober Sergea/nt Kenn-eoy and three constables patrolling in search of the gang were surprised by tne outlaws in camp, aud, 1 as tdioy showed figh'c-, Ned and Dan Kelly attacked them. Only one .trooper escapea. At this outrage Byrne was horrified, iiait scaa-ed, but tne Kelly s forced them to lire> into Sergeant Kennedy's corpse thaib tSieymight share the guilt. Them Ned Kelly, touched by the- -gallantry with wliich the sergeant- ihad fough'r^ brought a cloak andl reverently covered bis body. In Deoembeir the outlaws stuck up a sheep, station, and robbed the bank at Euxoa. Li Febiuary, 1879, they surprised the police station at Jerilderie, locked twoi policemen in the cells, disguised tiheniselvcs as constables, captured the town, imprisoning a crowd of people in the hotel, then sacked the bank, and rode away shouting aad silnging with their 1 plunder. By this- time ! the rewards offered for their capture amounted to £8030, amd the whole strength of the Victorian police was engaged, with native taukors, in hunting them. Had 'thes. wicked robbers ever showed rudfaness to a woman, or plundered, a poor man, or behaved meanly with their stolen weaJ-h, 'they wcxuld have been betrayed at once to tha police, but the Australians are sportsmen, and 'there is a gallantry in robbery uuder arms which appeals) to misguided hearts. The four bad men. weie so polite to- all women, so kindly to u_.airm.ed citizens, so humorous in their methods, so generous' withi thieir gold, so daring in making war agiainst a powerful British. S!cate that they were esteemed as herpes. Even bad heroes a,re b_bber fb-an none at all, and they were not bstrayed even by poor folk to whom the rewards would have been a fortune. For two years they outwitted the whole force of polioa scouts and tracker's ait a cost to the State of £115,000. But with all this the best of Australian manhood was engaged in the hunt, and the real heroes of this adventure were the police, who made no moan through months of outrageous labours and sufferings in the mountains. Superintendent Hare, in charge of the hunt, made friends with a kinsman of the outlaws, a young horse thief, named Aaron Sherritt. He knew all the secrets of the outlaws, was like a brother to them, and yet so worshipped Mr Hare that he served with the police as a spy. In treachery to his kinsman be -was at least faithful to his master, knowing that he went to his own death. He expected the outlaws to come by night to the house of Joe Byrne's mother, and led Mr Hare's patrol, which lay for tho next month in hiding upon a bill overlooking the homestead. He was engaged to Byrne"s sister, was daily at the house, snd slowly a dim suspicion dawned on the outlaw's mother. Then the old woman, uneasily searching the hills, t'tumbl&d into the police bivouac, and saw Aaron Sherritt, the spy, asleep in, that company. His dress betrayed him to her, a white shirt, breeches, and long boots, impossible to mistake; and when he knew what had happened the lad went white, "Now," he muttered, "I ami -a dead man." Mrs Byrne sent the news of Aaron's treachery to her outlawed son in the hills. On June 26 the spy was called out of his mother's cabin by someone who cried that be had lost his way. Aaron opened the door, and Joe Byrne shot him through the heart. So the outlaws had broken cover after months of hiding, and at once Superintendent Hare brought police and trackers by a special train that they might take up the trail of their retreat back to the mountains. The outlaws, foreseeing this movement, tore up the railway track, so that the train with its load of police, might be thrown into a gully, and all who survived the wreck were to be shot down without mercy. This snare, which they set for their enemies was badiy planned. Instead of tearing up the tracks themselves, they brought men for the job from Glenrowan Station close by_ and then to prevent their presence from being reported, they had to hold the village instead- of mounting guard upon their trap. They cut tho Wiresj, secured tbe station, and herded all the villagers into Ihe Glenrowafti Hotel some two hundred yards from the railway. Then they bad to wait for the train from three o'clock on Monday morning all through the long day and the dreary night, guarding sixty prisoners and watching for the police. They amused the prisoners, men, women, and children, with an impromptu dance in which they shared by turns, then with raids upon outlying houses, and with athletic feats, but always on the alert lest any man should escape to give the , alarm, or the police arrive unobserved. Tbe strain was beyond- human endurance. So Byrne, fresh from the murder i of bis chum" Aaron Sherritt, relieved his mind by getting drunk, Ned Kelly kept up bis courage by bragging of tbe death prepared for bis enemies, and, worst" of all, the local schoolmaster was allowed to 'take his sick wife home. This schoolmaster had been most sympathetic all day. long, helping tbe outlaws until be won their confidence ; but mow, escaped to his house, he made haste to prepare a lantern, covered with a red _h„wl, with which to signal the train. He stood upon the track waving the ared light, when, im tbe pitchy darkness before dawn, tbe train load of police came bHndly straight for the death-trap. Tbe train slowed-, stopped, anil was saved. Out of plough-hares and scrap iron, a blacksmith had -forged for each of tbe outlaws ai cuirass and helmet of plate armour, and now, at the sound of the approaching train, they dressed m this bullet-proof harness. Ned Kelly's suit weighed ninetyseven pounds, and the others were similar, so clumsy that the .wearer oould neither run to attack nor mount a horse to escape. Moreover, with a rifle at the shoulder, it was Impossible to see for taking aim. So armed, the robbers had got no further than the hotel verandah when- the police chared, : amd a fierce engagement began-. The pri»one_s huddled within tbe house had no

shelter from its frail board walls, and twe of the children were wounded. Byrne was drinking at the bar when a bullet struck him dead. Ned Kelly, attempting to desert his comrades, made foi the yard, but, finding that all the horsea bad been shot, strolled back laughing amid a storm of lead. Every bullet striking his armour made him reel, and he had beer five times wounded, but now he began tc walk about the yard emptying Iris revolver! into the police. Then a sergeant fired at his legs, and the outlaw dropjled, appealing abjectly for his life. The "escape of the panic-stricken prisoners had been arranged, but for hours the fight went on, until, towards, noon, the house stood a riddled and ghastly shell, with no sign of lif<_ A bundle of straw was lighted against the gable end, and tb« building was soon ablaze. Rumours now spread that an old man lay wounded in the house, and a priest gallantly led in a rush of police to tlie rescue. The old man was saved, and, under the thick red smoke, Dan Kelly and Hart were seen lying dead upon the floor in their armour. Ned Kelly died as he had lived, a coward, being almost carried to the gallows, and that evening his sister Kate exhibited herself as a show in- a music-hall at Melbourne. So ended this bloody tragedy in hideous faroe, and with the destruction of the outlaws closed a long period of disorder. Except in remote regions of the frontier, robbery under arms had ceased for ever in Australasian States.