A CRIME ROMANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15312, 13 August 1923, Page 8

A CRIME ROMANCE.

DAYS OF "CAPTAIN MOONLITE."

The modest little tuck shop, with its substantial folding shutters, which stands opposite the Dana Street State School, Ballarat, was at one time the centre of a dramatic incident (says a writer in the Sydney Sun). It was the orie-inal Union Bank, which years ago was removed from Mount Egerton. This is the bank that was the scene of Captain Moonlite's stirring bushranging adventures. Henry Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, was at the time a Church of England lay-reader, whose headquarters was at Mount Egerton; He was a well educated man and a fluent forcible speaker, beloved by the whole district both for his pleasing personality and his gallantry. One night a masked man walked into the living-room behind the bank and ordered the manager, who was alone at the time, to ball up. The manager, who was on most friendly terms with the clergyman, at once recognised his voice and asked the intruder whether this was a suitable practical joke for a clergyman. He threatened to shoot the manager unless he surrendered and obeyed his commands. Scott gagged him and took him across to the sehoolhouse, and forced him to sign the following statement: —"Captain Moonlite has stuck me up and robbed this bank." Scott then took the manager back to the bank, bound Mm hand and foot, and «ien helped himself to a thousand pounds in notes and gold. On the following day the schoolmaster fonnd the paper. He handed rt to the police, who, on going to the bank, found the manager bound and gagged. All considered the bank manager's story about the clergyman too absurd and ridiculous to be true. The manager and tbe schoolmaster were both arrested and tried for being jointly concerned in tbe crime. Henry Scott was very active in trying to find incriminating evidence against his two friends. Both were committed for trial, but on account of insufficient evidence, the case broke down. Just before the trial Scott disappeared from Egerton. He went to Sydnev. Here he spent money freely, putting up at a leading hotel. He represented himself as a wealthy tourist travelling over Australia. He purchased a yacht,- and after passing a number of valueless cheques he set sail for the South Sea Islands. He was .taken back on the charge of forgery and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. When released he was sentenced to ten years for the Eeerton robbery. He escaped from the Ballarat Gaol in a most during and adventurous manner, but he was recaptured. When, in prison lie behaved so well that lie was allowed a remission for good eonduct. After his release he made a living bv lecturing on prison reform. One day he disappeared from his old haunts. His imagination had been fired by reading of the actions of the Kelly gang. He soon managed to gather around him a gang of desperadoes, and after many lawless acts of looting and bushranging the police mannscl to break up the gang, after a terrible affray in which a policeman and a bushranger were killed. Captain Moonlite and one other of the gang were -hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol. He was then in bis 37th year.