We heard many tales of bushrangers from those who had encountered them or heard of their performances from friends. It is not very astonishing that a population largely recruited in early days from convicts should have provided a contingent of highwaymen. Their two main sources of income were the oxen and horses which they stole and sold again after scientifically “faking” the brands, and the gold which they robbed as it was being conveyed to distant banks.
I have referred to Rolf Boldrewood’s hero “Starlight.” Certain incidents of his career were adapted from the life of the most prominent bushranger Kelly, but whereas Starlight, for the purpose of the story, is endowed with some of the traits of a fallen angel, Kelly seems to have been a common sort of villain in most respects, only gifted with exceptional daring and with that power over other men which is potent for good or evil. He was described as wearing “armour”; I believe that he protected himself with certain kitchen utensils under his clothes. In the end, when hotly pursued by the police, he and his band underwent a regular siege in a house, but by that time the police were able to bring up reinforcements by rail, the gang was forced to surrender, and Kelly and others were executed.
A sordid incident was that on the very night of his execution Kelly’s brother and sister appeared, for money, on the stage in a theatre at Melbourne!
The railroad was the effectual means of stopping bushranging, both by facilitating the movements of the police and by enabling gold to be transported without the risks attendant on coaches, or horsemen who were sometimes sent by their employers to carry it from place to place. A gentleman told me how he had been thus commissioned, and being attacked by a solitary bushranger in a wayside inn, dodged his assailant round and round a stove and ultimately got off safely.
Bushranging was extinct before our arrival in New South Wales, but Jersey had one rather curious experience of its aftermath. An old man had murdered his wife, and, in accordance with the then custom, the capital sentence pronounced upon him by the judge came before the Governor in Council for confirmation. Jersey asked the advice of each member in turn, and all concurred in the verdict except one man, who declined to give an opinion. After the Council he took my husband aside and told him that he had not liked to join in the condemnation as he knew the criminal personally. He added this curious detail. The murderer had formerly been connected with a gang of bushrangers; he had not actually shared in their depredations, but he had received the animals they stole, and it was his job to fake the brands—namely, to efface the names or marks of the proper owners and to substitute others so that the horses or cattle could not be identified. The gang was captured and broken up, the members being all sentenced to death or other severe punishment, but this man escaped, as his crimes could not be proved against him. Nemesis, however, awaited him in another form. He kept his faking iron; and when his wife was found murdered, the fatal wound was identified as having been inflicted with this weapon, and he was thereby convicted.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Another story of those bygone days, though unconnected with bushranging, seems worth preservation. A man was found lying dead in the streets of Brisbane (or some other town in Queensland), and there was no evidence whatever to show how he had come by this fate, though the fact that his watch was missing pointed to violence on the part of some person unknown. A considerable time afterwards certain poor houses were demolished, with the view presumably to building better ones in their place. Behind a brick in the chimney of one of these houses was found the missing watch. A workman who had inhabited the house at the time of the murder was thereupon arrested, and brought before a judge who had come on circuit. The workman protested his innocence, saying that he had seen the man lying in the street and, finding that he was quite dead, appropriated his watch and took it home to his wife. The woman had told him that he was very foolish, as if the watch were found in his possession he might be accused of killing the man, and yielding to her persuasions instead of trying to sell or wearing it he hid it behind the chimney where it was found. The story sounded thin, but on hearing the details of place and date the presiding judge exclaimed that it was true. When a young barrister he himself had been in the same town, and was running to catch the train when a man, apparently drunk, lurched against him; he pushed him aside and saw him fall, but had no idea that he was injured, and hurried on. The workman was acquitted, and I suppose that the judge acquitted himself!
Space has not admitted any record of our visitors at Sydney, but I must mention the pleasure which we had in welcoming Miss Shaw who came on behalf of The Times to examine and report on the Kanaka question. It was universally allowed that The Times had been very well advised in sending out so charming and capable a lady. She won the hearts of the Queensland planters, who introduced her to many sides of plantation life which they would never have troubled themselves to show a mere man. We gladly continued in England a friendship thus begun at the Antipodes, none the less gladly when Miss Shaw became the wife of an equally talented servant of the Empire, Sir Frederick Lugard.
One year we entertained at Osterley a number of foreign Colonial delegates and asked representative English people to meet them.
Among our guests were Sir Frederick and Lady Lugard. The latter was seated between a Belgian, interested in the Congo, and I think a Dutchman. After dinner these gentlemen asked me in somewhat agitated tones, “Qui était cette dame qui était si forte dans la question de l’Afrique?” and one said to the other, “Elle vous a bien roulé, mon cher.”