He had often murmured at the poverty of the journalistic resources of his surroundings, which afforded no field for literary ability. Even when Nature seemed kindly disposed, by reason of abnormal conditions, he was restricted in efforts to improve the occasion by the vigorously expressed local censorship of the pastoralists. Did he draw a harrowing picture of the stricken waste, denuded of pasture, and strewn with dead and dying flocks, and herds, every one was “down on him,” as he expressed it, for taking away the character of the district. Did he dilate on the vast prairies waving with luxuriant herbage, after a phenomenal rainfall, he was abused as “inviting every blooming free-selector in the colony to come out and make a chess-board of their runs, directly they had a little grass.” There was no pleasing them. Even the editor of the Weekly Clarion, mindful of influential subscribers, had admonished him to be careful in good seasons, as well as bad.
He was at his wits’ end, between the agricultural Scylla, and the pastoral Charybdis, so to speak. It may be imagined with what gratitude he hailed the “Tragedy of Ghost Camp,” as his headline described it, in which he was likely to offend nobody excepting the Police Department, for whose feelings his public had no great consideration.
Extract from the Weekly Newsletter and Down River Advertiser.
“It is long since the site of this celebrated locality, once notorious for tribal fights, and dark deeds of revenge, not always stopping at cold-blooded murder, if old tales be true, has resounded with the echo of rifle shots, the oaths of the victors, the groans of the dying! Yet such has lately been the case. But a few days since a deed of blood, of long-delayed vengeance, has been enacted, recalling the more lurid incidents of pioneer days.
“We had received information of the passing of Inspector Francis Dayrell, with a party of picked troopers, on a back track, running parallel to our main stock route. They carried a light camp equipment, not halting at stations or townships and apparently desirous to avoid observation. We have in another place expressed our disapproval of this practice, holding that the ends of justice are better served by forwarding information to the local press. Had that been done in the present case, the fatal finale might have been averted.
“Be that as it may, the cortège that was descried approaching our principal street at an early hour this morning, presented a very different appearance from that of the well-accoutred police party that our informant noticed but two days earlier heading for the broken mountainous country at the head of the Wandong Creek. The troopers detailed for this dangerous service were led by that well-known, and, we may say, dreaded police officer, the late Inspector Francis Dayrell, the greatest daredevil, the most determined officer of the Victorian Mounted Police.
“It was quickly noted by a sharp-eyed bushman, in the neighbourhood of Host Parley’s well-kept and commodious hotel, which commands the approach to our township from the north-east, that something was wrong with the body of police now approaching the town at a funeral pace.
“The trooper who rode in front led Inspector Dayrell’s well-known charger, a matchless hackney, perfect in the manège in which all troop horses are trained. The inspector was badly wounded and nearly insensible, from the manner in which he bowed himself on the horse’s neck, while he swayed helplessly in the saddle. The second trooper also led a horse on which was a wounded man. Behind rode two men, one evidently so badly hurt, that he sat his horse with difficulty.
“‘They’ve been cut up bad,’ said one of the bushmen. ‘Let’s ride up and meet ’em, Jack!’ Two men waiting for the mail mounted their horses, and met the little party; from which, after a word or two with the Sergeant, they came back full speed to the hotel, and thus imparted the melancholy news.
“‘Police had a brush with Bradfield’s gang from Queensland, as they thought they were going to take. Some other chaps had joined them along with Dick Lawless, and double-banked ’em. Dayrell’s killed, and a trooper—they’re the two first; Doolan’s wounded bad. The Sergeant wants a room to put the dead men in till the Coroner’s inquest’s held; he’ll have ’em buried as soon as it’s over.’