"Sticking-up." — In our last communication from the diggings we received intelligence of the first "robbery under arms" which has occurred in the Province. On Friday the 18th inst. a much more daring and successful robbery of the same character took place on the road to the diggings at the West Taieri, or rather on the hills at the back of the Taieri. It appears that a gang of 7 men, armed and wearing masks stopped and "stuck up" 15 persons during the day. A gentleman coming into town from Mr. Thomson's run was the first victim. He was riding, and as he ascended a spur of the hills he passed a man lying on the grass, of whom he took no particular notice. Proceeding a short distance on, he observed three others apparently engaged in chopping wood. When he approached near enough, they made a rush, and two seized the bridle of his horse. Mr. Miller resisted, and threw one man off, but he was immediately attacked by others and pushed out of his saddle. While the villains were in the act of robbing and tying him, one of them presented a revolver at him and said, "Look at that tree, sir." They then bound him to a tree in the gully adjoining. This is the third time Mr. Miller has been stuck up, having twice passed through the unpleasant ordeal in Australia, and on one occasion received a shot in the face. Fourteen other persons were robbed by this gang during the day, and as each man was caught and robbed, he was placed in the gully out of sight, with his hands and feet tied to prevent his escape. The persons robbed describe the treatment they received as being unaccompanied with any personal violence other than that which was necessary for the robbers to effect their object; indeed, that they were treated rather civilly than otherwise, the thieves cutting up tobacco and lighting the pipes of the captives, and supplying one or two of them with grog, which had been stolen. Towards evening one of the party managed, after skinning his wrists, the cord being so tightly tied, to work his hands free, and unbound his fellow-sufferers, who in a body proceeded with Mr. Miller to the residence of J. Fulton, Esq, in the West Taieri, where they were kindly treated, and after partaking of refreshments, went on their respective ways. Information of the robbery was forwarded to Dunedin, and a body of mounted police were immediately despatched to endeavour to catch the thieves, hitherto without success; but we believe a clue to them has been obtained. Four persons were arrested and brought before the Magistrate, but were discharged. The amount of property taken from the various persons stuck up was between £300 and £400. Caution. — In the present state of the Province persons cannot be too careful in avoiding giving temptation to robbery and crime. We have repeatedly pointed out the folly of persons travelling with gold or other valuable property. We hope that the few cases of sticking-up which have occurred will deter the public from pursuing the practice, it is quite impossible for any Government to afford protection to the community unless they will help themselves. Those who are obliged to be out late, or have to carry valuable property, should go armed, and in sufficient numbers to deter bushrangers from attacking them. -Otago Witness, 26/10/1861.
Yesterday there was a report in this gully of some 15 men having been stuck up by 13 bushrangers who had concealed themselves in a lot of manuka scrub, on the West Taieri road, about half-way from Dunedin to the diggings. I have heard that it is supposed to be some Melbourne men on their way to the diggings. I believe that £400 was taken from two of the men. There is but very little bush about the country, so that a few mounted police would secure any person's safety on the road. I believe the parties that committed the assault have come on to the diggings. -Colonist, 15/11/1861.
THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam out Faciam."
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1861.
RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.
Saturday, 21st Dec. (Before J. H. Harris., Esq., R. M.)
P. Watson and J. Johnston, were each fined 2®s for Drunkenness.
Jane Stuart was committed to gaol for two months under the Vagrants Ordinance.
The Sticking-up at the West Taieri.— Extraordinary Evidence. John Anderson, alias Burris, was brought up on remand charged with highway robbery under arms, at the West Taieri, on the 18th October last. The prisoner was defended by Mr. South.
Charles Christopher said: I remember the 18th of October last; between 7 and 8 o'clock in the morning, I was ascending the range at the back of Maungatua on my way to the diggings, when I met a man with a black mask, and a revolver in his hand, which he presented at me; three more men armed and masked then came up, and pointing to a little bush in a gully said "Down." I tried to resist, but one of them took me by the collar, and said if I went quietly no harm would be done to me, they then searched me and bound my hands and feet with cords; they took a silver watch, a revolver, and two pounds in money from me; all the robbers had black silk hankerchiefs over their faces; 14 other men were taken and bound during the day; I think that I could identify all the four men, but from circumstances which occurred afterwards I can particularly identify one of, them. After we were tied up one remained to keep watch over us, and I spoke a few words to him about the country; he did not appear inclined to talk, as he said it was risking the lives of his mates. They left after dark and I then released myself, the knot being tied on the top of my right wrist; I then went to the nearest magistrate, Mr. Fulton, of West Taieri, and gave him a written statement of what had occurred. I staid that night at Mr. Fulton's, and the next night at Mackay's Accommodation House; I went to bed early but could not sleep in consequence of the noise, so I came down stairs again and went into the lower room; I saw sitting near the door a man who I thought was one of the robbers, but was not quite sure; seeing me looking at him he beckoned me to him and asked me was I one of those who had been stuck up; I replied by asking him whether he was not one of those who had stuck me up. He said that he was; there were a lot of people in the room at the time, but the noise was so great that they could not hear what was said; he asked me what I had lost and I told him; he said that he had plenty of money, and if I would go mates with him to the diggings, he would get tools and pay the expenses, and I should have no cause to repent, it; at first I was unwilling to go, and told him I had mates and a claim there already, and that I only wanted money to go there; afterwards I consented to go with him, and he gave me £1; he afterwards gave me £2 on the road; I thought hie might have mates in the neighbourhood and I consented to go from motives of prudence; I helped him to carry the swag, and he took a tent and some provisions, from the scene of the robbery. When we got to Tuapeka, I left him standing on the ridge between Gabriel's and Weatherston's gully, and I went down to my own tent and told my mates all that had occurred; they advised me to get rid of my companion as soon as possible, or else he might get me into some corner and shoot me; I returned to him and went with him to the tent of some friend of his where he shaved and changed his clothes; we had supper there, and then we returned to my tent and he took his things away, the things I had left there; my mates were out, and I told him we had better separate, as the Police were making enquiries about me, and that as long as he left me alone I would leave him alone. He then went away and I never saw or heard of him again on the diggings. The day after, the police took me over to the camp to see if I could identify any of the men in custody there; this was done several times, but I could not do so. At last I found this was interfering so much with my time that I was losing money by it; I, therefore, moved my tent in hopes that the police would not be able to find me out; a detective found me out about a fortnight since, and served me with a summons to appear here. At first I refused to go, but when I found I could be compelled, I came into town and was shown the prisoners in the goal; I immediately recognised the prisoner Burns, but I did not tell the Detective so; I told him that I did not because I was afraid of his mates, and thought that the best plan was to hold my tongue, but, in a few minutes, I found this would not answer my purpose; I told the detective the truth, and that I could identify Burns as the man who had stood sentry over me and afterwards accompanied me to the diggings. I remarked the colour of his beard and of his hair at the time, I have not the least doubt that the prisoner at the bar is the same man. He had a revolver in each hand during the time he stood sentry over us. While on the diggings I received a warning from a perfect stranger to the effect that I had better hold my tongue, and that I was going too often to the camp. Last Thursday, while walking in George-street, a man, at that time a stranger, came up to me and said "you know the situation of Burns; you will know nothing about him as we are anxious to get him out of the country, and you are the only person that can identify him." I said "that I would say what I had said already," and I followed him and gave him in charge. I see him in court now. I have since recognized him as one of Burns's mates on the diggings. The sentry had on a Panama hat at the time of the robbery.
Cross examined by Mr. South: When I came into town I came up to the Court and saw the prisoner brought in; this was before I went to the goal. I recognised him then, and also in gaol; I told the Detective I did not know him because I thought I would be asked more questions; I told him the truth a few minutes after; I swear that I have no doubt that the prisoner is the man.
William Maloney, of West Taieri, another of the victims, gave a somewhat similar account of the robbery; the only important point in which his evidence differed from that of the previous witness being, that he stated the sentry wore a black felt hat instead of a Panama one. He did not see his face, but he remarked the colour of his hair and beard, and from these circumstances together with his voice and size, he believed the prisoner to be the man. He had spoken several times to him while tied up, but when brought in to the gaol the prisoner did not seem willing to speak to him; but on the 8th instant, he had heard the prisoner speak in Court, when he was not aware of the witness's presence, and he had immediately recognised the voice. He had not seen the man's face, but he had no doubt the prisoner was the man.
Mr. South, on the part of the prisoner, applied for a remand, for the purpose of bringing up evidence for the defence.
The prisoner was therefore remanded till next Thursday. -Otago Daily Times, 24/12/1861.
CAREER OF HENRY GARRATT.
THE ANNALS OF CRIME.
We take from the Sydney Empire the following account of Garratt, one of the men charged with being concerned in the West Taieri sticking-up case. It is supposed that immediately after the robbery, he made his way to the coast, and succeeded in getting on board a vessel bound for Sydney: —
Henry Garratt alias Rowse, the ringleader in the highway robbery under arms, committed at the West Taieri, on the l8th of October last, has been arrested at Sydney, from information received through the columns of the Otago Police Gazette.
There is no possible doubt as to his identity, as he was seen without his mask by all the fifteen men who were stuck up on the occasion. Garratt's career is unprecedented in the annals of crime, even in Australia. In 1854 he and two others entered the Ballarat Bank in the middle of the day, bailed the manager up and abstracted from the bank several thousands of pounds. He was arrested the subsequent year at his residence in Foley-place, Oxford-street, London, and brought back to Sydney. After he had committed the robbery, he went to Sydney, and escaped to England. As the vessel by which he had sailed was known from information, partly given by his wife, whom he left behind, an officer of the Victorian Police was sent after him, and he would have been taken immediately on the vessel arriving in England, had he not adopted a cunning precaution of going ashore somewhere on the coast as soon as land had been sighted. A day or two after his arrival in London, he went to the Bank of England and got change for a quantity of the gold which formed a portion of the robbery. The suspicions of the officials were excited, and having heard of the robbery in Australia, information of his visit to the bank was at once sent to the police. At his lodgings when he was arrested, were found several revolvers, opossum rugs, and blankets, which he brought from Victoria. Even at his residence his conduct excited suspicion, for he would not allow any person to enter his room without knocking, and he always kept a revolver loaded on the mantlepiece, which he was observed to draw towards him whenever any one approached. The proceedings of this daring offender partook so much of the romantic, that in the book which was published in London, called "Scenes of a London Detective," the sketch entitled "The Bank Robbery," is known to have allusion to him. He was eventually tried, and upon the clearest evidence, sentenced to transportation for ten years, which sentence would expire in 1865, he his therefore, at present, a ticket-of-leave holder. When arrested in Sydney, he made a most determined and desperate resistance, and endeavored to get at the bowie knife he had by his side; resistance, however, was useless, as his captor, Detective Clark, is a most powerful man, and another officer came up at the same time. On his person were found two packages of strychnine. -Otago Daily Times, 3/1/1862.
CLEVER CAPTURE. (excerpt)
Garret, shortly after his capture, was brought out to Sydney, and from hence sent to Melbourne with the notorious Clarke, who made so wonderful escape from Port Arthur, notwithstanding that bloodhounds were kept about the place, and the strongest means adopted for his security. Clarke was supposed to have been drowned, as to make clear his escape he had to swim an immense expanse of water, but being taken subsequently at Bathurst, where it was supposed he had murdered a trooper, he was forwarded to Victoria with Garrett. We might here add that Garrett's companion to Melbourne was the same Clarke whose singular escape from Darlinghurst gaol, where he was confined in a cell in the upper part of the building, is one of the most intrepid on record. So desperate were these two villains that it was deemed necessary to forward them from here to Melbourne with a strong escort, and inspector Hampton, with sergeants Healy, Black, Smith, and Doyle, of the Sydney police force, were despatched in charge of them. Garrett eventually was tried, and upon the clearest evidence sentenced to transportation. At his trial it transpired that he had been a soldier, and originally was transported from England to Tasmania for the offence of striking his officer. He was known, as one of the best cricketers in Leicestershire, and, although a self-educated man, was possessed of considerable attainments.
Intelligence some time reached Sydney that Garrett had escaped from Victoria, and the detective police here have ever since been on the look-out for him. From some information inspector Harrison had received, a few days since, he became under the impression that Garrett was in Sydney; and last night, shortly before twelve o'clock, Mr. Harrison, in walking down Pitt-street, observed a man approaching him with a woman, who from the description of Garrett, appeared to be the very man; but as it was so many years since Mr. Harrison, had seen Garrett, he could not be sure enough to take him in charge at the time, but he wisely adopted the prudent measure of watching his movements to see where he would go to. Mr. Harrison followed him for a considerable time, when Garrett turning down a lane off Pitt-street, near the Haymarket, he lost sight of him. Mr. Harrison then hastened off to the detective office, and mentioning what had occurred, desired the police to be on the alert in the matter.
Yesterday morning accordingly shortly after eleven o'clock, detective Clarke — one of the most efficient members of the police force — happened to be standing for a moment by the door of a daguerrotype gallery on Brickfield-hill, when, on glancing in, he observed Garrett in company with a young woman. He could not be mistaken in the man, as Garrett came out in the same vessel with him— the Exodus. Clarke, the moment he saw him, grasped him, knowing that he would, if he could, offer a determined resistance, as he did when first taken in London. Garrett instantly endeavored to get at a bowie knife he had by his side, but saw that resistance was useless, as his captor is a powerful man; and strange to say, that at the moment Clarke had secured him, inspector Healy, of the Woolloomooloo division, came up from the opposite side of the road, who, as well as Clarke, had come out in the Exodus with Garrett, so that there was no difficulty in his being identified. There is no doubt., that if it had not been for the determined conduct of detective Clarke, Garrett would have used his bowie-knife with serious effect.
On the prisoner were found two packets of strychnine. Garrett, for the Ballarat Bank robbery, received a sentence of fifteen years. Since his escape, some twelve months ago, he has been committing highway robberies in New Zealand, one having been of the most daring nature at Otago. — Sydney Empire. -Colonist, 17/1/1862.
RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT
HIGHWAY ROBBERY.
Henry Garrett was chanted with Highway Robbery behind Maungatua, on the 18th October last. The prisoner refused to plead, and when the witnesses were ordered to leave the Court, he said, "that if they were wise, he would advise them not to come in again."
Wm. Maloney said, that he kept an Accommodation House at West Taieri. He remembered the 18th October last. About 11 o'clock that day, he was ascending the Maungatua range towards the diggings. He was walking, and leading a pack horse. When about three miles, up the range, he saw a tent at the side of the road, and two men on horseback beside it. As he went on, they rode towards him very fast. They had fire-arms — revolvers. They passed him, and he went on to the tent. There was a man standing at it who said "Good morning, Mate," and asked him to have a drink of tea. He took the tea, and while drinking it the man remarked that there was no sugar in it. After drinking it, the man asked him where he was going, and he replied, to the diggings. The man immediately came forward, caught him by the collar, and said, "you are my prisoner, I have been waiting for you; I knew you were coming." He then drew out his revolver, and dragged witness behind the tent into a gully where another little man with a mask on his face came up, and the two pushed him down between him. The man whom he first met at the tent had no mask or disguise on his face up to this time. After knocking him down, the two men threw a coat over his head and fastened it there, tying his hands behind his back at the same time, and then searching his pockets, from which they took a purse containing four or five sovereigns. After doing this they, at his request, took the covering off his face, and he then observed that the tall man had a woollen comforter over the lower part of his face. The tall man then led him into the bush, to a place where there were six or seven other men tied up. On the way, the man told him not to be frightened, as he would have plenty of mates, and they only wanted money. When the tall man brought him into the bush he laid him down on the grass, tied his legs, searched him again, and then left him, with the others, who were also tied up. There were two other men along with the tall man at various periods of the day; they were all armed, and one of them stood sentry all day. He remained tied up for eight or nine hours. During that time, he saw the tall man several times, when he brought down other prisoners, and he also brought them down some tea and some of the gin which had been in witness's own pack. He also cut up tobacco and filled their pipes for them. About dusk in the evening, the tall man came down, and after examining his rifle he laid it down, and tied each of the 15 or 16 persons to a separate tree, and threw some blankets and tents over them. The tall man and his mates shortly afterwards went away, and said they would tell some one that there was something wrong in the bush, and to go and help them. About an hour afterwards witness managed to release himself. Another prisoner named Corstorphon also managed to get loose and released the remainder. When they were released they proceeded to Mr. Fulton's and gave him information of the outrage, he being the nearest magistrate. The prisoner at the bar was the man who first assaulted him, and of whom he had spoken as the "tall man."
By the Prisoner — He was not doing anything at present. He did not expect to get a Government situation or to be paid more than the usual expenses for appearing as a witness for the prosecution.
Seymour Dupay said he had kept an accommodation house at West Taieri. At present he lived in Dunedin. He remembered the 18th October last. He was on his way to the diggings by the Maungatua road. He had started with Maloney, but after going for about two miles witness went into a gully to get some water and Maloney went on. As witness was stooping to get the water a man with a billy and a pannikin in his hand name up and said "Mate, fill my billy." Witness did so and the man went away. Witness then went to fill his own billy, when another man without any disguise on his face, and armed with a revolver, came up and said "stand," at the same time presenting the revolver. This man was very tall, about six feet high. Witness stepped back a few paces and said "I believe you're going to stick me up." The man then jumped down and tied his hands behind his back, at the same time inquiring how much money he had. Witness said he had a few pounds, and the man remarked "You'll do," and searched him, taking £10 10s. in a purse out of his pocket. The man then said "come this way." Witness got up out of the gully and walked before the men until he came to an open space in the bush where there were six or seven other men all tied up. The tall man then told him to sit down and tied his legs, and left him. Witness saw him several times after this, when he was bringing other prisoners down. The last time be saw him was about seven o'clock, when he came down and tied each of the prisoners to a separate tree, and than went away. The prisoner at the bar was the man alluded to as the tall man who first stuck him up. There were three other men with the prisoner.
By the prisoner — He saw the previous witness (Maloney) about three minutes after he himself got to the place where all the prisoners were tied. Maloney arrived there after he did. Witness did not see any tent near the place. Maloney was before him on the road, perhaps, about a quarter of a mile. Witness did not know whether he or Maloney were stuck up first. It was about thirty or forty yards from where he was stuck up to the place where his legs were tied. It was below the place where he was stuck up. He had not been promised anything for giving his evidence. He had not tapped the prisoner on the shoulder in the gaol yard.
At the request of the prisoner, Maloney was recalled, and in answer to the prisoner, said that it was at least 200 yards from the place where he was stopped to where he was left tied up. It was about ten minutes after he was stuck up that he was left tied up with the others. Dupay was there when he was brought down. It was quite possible for one man to have stuck them both up if he was quick about it. The man who stuck him up asked him if it was his mate who had gone for the water, as he would find him there before him. From the tent on the road it was possible to see the entrance to the enclosure where they were all tied up.
Wm. Millar, a laborer residing in Dunedin, also described the circumstances of the robbery of which he had been one of the victims, and he distinctly swore to the identity of the prisoner as one of the robbers.
Matthew Miller, manager of a sheep-station at Popotuna, described that while riding in the part of the country referred to on the day in question, he came up to a tent near which one man was lying on the ground, while four others were at work chopping wood and lighting a fire. After passing the man on the ground, and on approaching the others, the four turned round upon him with masks upon their faces, and in their hands revolvers, which they presented at him. At the same time the man whom he had passed lying on the ground came up, also with a mask on his face; the whole party surrounded his horse, seized the reins, and threw him from his saddle; and when on the ground, his hands were tied and his pockets rifled of a watch, gold albert-chain, signet ring, two seconds of exchange for £10 each, on the Union Bank of Australia, and thirty shillings in cash. His horse, saddle, and bridle were also taken from him. There was only one man before him at the spot at which the party assaulted were subsequently collected. He identified his watch, but could not swear to the identity of the prisoner.
On being asked if he had any statement to make, the prisoner said he had nothing to say or sign. He did not usually write with the pen, but with another instrument, with which he seldom made a mistake.
The prisoner was then committed to take his trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court, and was removed from the bar. -Otago Daily Times 18/2/1862.
The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle reported the same as above, but had more to add:
GARRETT, THE HIGHWAY ROBBER.
[From the Otago Colonist, February 21.] At the Resident Magistrate's Court, on Monday, February 17, Henry Garrett was charged with having, on the 18th of December last, near Maungatua, committed a robbery on the highway. The prisoner refused to plead, and displayed great strangeness of manner.
When the Lord Worsley put into Wellington, on the way to Dunedin, Garrett was lodged in the lock-up, and in the crown of his hat was found, carefully sewn up, a letter addressed to the Editor of the Witness, and purporting to be written by a fellow-passenger, but which, subsequently, Garrett acknowledged to be his own writing. We extract the following therefrom: — I have been a passenger from Sydney in the same vessel, and took every opportunity of conversing with Garrett, and find he is indeed a man of the most dangerous and determined character, as his many exploits testify. I got him, through taking a seeming interest in his affairs, to give me a partial history of his past life. Left in childhood to the care of a drunken and brutal father, who he feared and hated, he at sixteen entered the army. For sticking an officer he was transported to Norfolk Island; was there at the time of Jackey Jackey's affair. Escaped early from Van Dieman's Land. Was one of the earliest on the Victorian diggings, and very successful, determined to square it, as he calls it (that is to be honest); but fear of being apprehended and sent back as an absconder, and meeting with others situated like himself, they committed a series of the most daring robberies, one of which was the pirating the ship Nelson, in Hobson's Bay. With the proceeds of this robbery, he, with another of his mates, visited England. Returned to the colonies, planned and executed the armed escort robbery, next the Herald office, and scarcely less daring than the bank robbery, at Ballarat; and though he would not admit, yet he left me no room to doubt but that he was the leader of the four men, who, in the open day, in the midst of the City of Sydney, entered the Bank of New South Wales, and only from the cowardice of one of the party, must have succeeded in entirely stripping the Bank of all it contained. He speaks most confidently of yet succeeding in his determination to raise himself above want or the necessity of labour. He believes himself to be an injured man, and speaks of his proceedings as a mere business affair and consider his profession, as he calls it, as honest as thousands of others. He appears a man strong in his affections, and most implacable in his hatred of those whom he thinks has injured him, and breathes a spirit of deep vengeance against society at large, the Victorian portion of it in particular.
His mind, naturally a strong one, is fearfully prejudiced and warped in his views on most ordinary things. He compares his own acts and dealing with society, to those of Government, and the contrast, he thinks, is much in his own favour. Soldiers, from the General down to the private, he styles red-coated hired assassins, who, for their pay, will commit wholesale murders, involving men, women, and children in one general massacre. These men, he says, are wreathed round the brow with laurels, eulogized in the papers, are sung of by poets, and their names and deeds inscribed in history for posterity to admire and emulate. Whilst he, as he calls himself, their humble imitator, who does what he does from necessity, who never kills or burns, or destroys what he cannot make use of, him he says, they call a thief, a robber, a brigand, whose trifling acts are execrated as something monstrous, and instead of wreathing his brow with the laurel, would wreathe his neck with the hangman's halter. Religion he repudiates altogether, and looks upon it as a State machine, useful only to Governments in coercing and governing the weak-minded and superstitious, and bending them to their purposes. And he takes every opportunity of propagating his dangerous doctrines of everything being lawful to him and his class. He advocates even resorting to poisoning the weapons they carry, and I believe he had on him at the time of his apprehension, two packets of the most dangerous and active poisons. No wonder the Victorians were unwilling to receive him back from Sydney. It is well known that they offered him his liberty on condition of his leaving the colony of Victoria, which he refused to do, saying he had an outstanding debt against them, which he promised to call in with interest on the first opportunity.
DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO BREAK OUT OF THE CITY GAOL.
(From the Daily Times, 23rd Sept.)
Two attempts, evidently concerted, were made by prisoners to break out of the Dunedin Gaol, during the night of Sunday, but they fortunately failed. The main actors were the notorious Garrat, who is undergoing a sentence of twelve years' imprisonment, for his daring outrages in the neighborhood of Tuapeka last year, and his companion John Anderson, alias Burns, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Garratt is known to have vowed vengeance, against the Governor, Mr. Stoddart, on account of a change in the rations introduced at his suggestion; and there can be little doubt, that had the conspirators succeeded in getting out of their cells, blood would have been spilled pretty freely. Unfortunately, from the want of proper means of keeping long-sentence prisoners at work, they have frequent means of communication; and there can be no doubt that the plan of action for the attempted escapes was arranged between Garratt and Anderson.
To commence with the operations of the more noted rascal. The cell in which Garrett was confined was about the most central in the goal. It adjoined the day-room, in which Garrett would know that there was generally a warder stationed during the night; yet it was through the day-room that he had resolved to escape, although there was a mode by which he could have got into the stockade as easily as into the day-room, if his own liberty had alone been his object. The wall between the cell and the day-room is of brick, and about eighteen inch thick. So far as can be ascertained, Garrett had no other instrument 'than a moderate sized nail, which was bent so as to form a convenient pricker; but with this he loosened, and then contrived to remove a large number of bricks from the lower portion of the wall. He broke through sufficiently to see into the day room; and it is believed that he then gave up, on discovering that the warder was accompanied by the sergeant, and that he would have no chance of surprising both men. -Wellington Independent, 7/10/1862.
DESPERATE ATTACK BY GARRETT ON A WARDER.
On Saturday afternoon, a violent assault was made on one of the warders in the gaol by Henry Garrett, who is at present undergoing sentence for highway robbery. A few days previously, the warder, who is named Flannery, had occasion to lodge a complaint against the prisoner, and he was punished for disobedience of orders. On Saturday Flannery's turn came to be on duty in the yard where Garrett was, and shortly before four o'clock the prisoner made a rush upon the warder, who, taken by surprise, received, several kicks and blows. A short struggle ensued, when Garrett made a desperate attempt to gouge out the eyes of his opponent. The sentry on the gallery seeing this, and afraid to aim lest he should hit the wrong man, fired his piece in the air as an alarm. This brought one of the sergeants to the spot, and with his assistance the prisoner was firmly secured. The warder has not received any injury of consequence. -Otago Daily Times, 17/10/1862.
Everybody has heard of Garrett, the highwayman, who stuck up so many diggers and others on the hill of Maungatua at the commencement of operations on our gold-fields. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced, to imprisonment in Dunedin gaol for a period of 8 years. Three years have now elapsed since his conviction, during all of which time he has obstinately refused to work like the other prisoners; has insisted on and got a better diet, and once nearly put an end to the existence of one of the wardens. It appears that Garrett's health has failed, in consequence of the want of out-door exercise, and a week or so since he was informed, that if he refused to go out and work with the other prisoners he would be flogged. Now, Mr Garrett did not like the idea of being whipped like a naughty boy; his fine soul was quite above it, and, with the best grace possible, he consented to work, and may now be seen on the Bell Hill, daily (Sundays and wet weather excepted), from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. inclusive. During three years now past, this notorious highwayman has positively been treated with respect by gaol officialism. He has been pampered and better fed than the other prisoners. He is a great reader, I understand, so he must have devoured two or three libraries; and now when he is told he will be flogged unless he goes out to work, he very wisely prefers doing the latter. -Bruce Herald, 2/11/1865.
Garrett, of Victorian and New Zealand notoriety, had his sentence commuted from eight years to six. Some time back he met with an accident while at work on Bell-hill, and has been a cripple ever since He was sent to the Dunedin Hospital, where he was well looked after by the benevolent, and everything was arranged to send him out of New Zealand properly provided for. Rumor goes that St. John Branigan took great interest in his future, and set a watch over him, and that as soon as Garrett left the Hospital for the vessel he was going in he was apprehended on a warrant sent from Victoria for being illegally at large. -Dunstan Times, 21/2/1868.
GARRETT THE BUSHRANGER.
The 'Melbourne Argus' gives the following account of the career of Garrett the buashranger; and of his adventures since his discharge from the Dunedin gaol: —
The following particulars of a case which was heard the City Court, on Saturday, are curiously illustrative of the wavering fortunes attending a bushranger's career, and point with unmistakable clearness to the deficient working of our present penal system. Henry Garrett, alias Rouse, was charged with being a prisoner of the Crown illegally at large. Garratt had been "forwarded" from New Zealand in charge of two detectives, and in accordance with instructions issued by Police-commissioner Branigan at Otago. During the year 1854 Garratt's name figured conspicuously in Victorian bushranging annals. In 1855 he appeared as ringleader of a band of desperadoes who robbed the Bank of Victoria at Ballarat. Soon after the perpetration of that outrage he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude in Pentridge Stockade. In consequence of his good conduct while in confinement, he was granted a ticket-of-leave in 1861. According to his own account, he was then advised by the heads of the police department to leave the Colony without loss of time, or else he would be subjected to the endless persecution of the police. Acting upon this Garratt started on foot from Melbourne on an overland trip to Sydney, with a floating capital of one shilling and a halfpenny in his pocket. After enduring many privations and surmounting numerous difficulties, he arrived at his destination. By friendly assistance a passage was secured for him in a sailing vessel bound for a New Zealand port, and in the course of a few weeks Garrett once more felt firm earth and a virgin soil beneath his tread, and his individuality in a great measure screened from the prying interference of Victorian detectives. Whatever chances of social prosperity and peaceful occupation Garrett may have been revolving in his mind at this period of his history appear to have been completely dispelled by the first sight of the waving forests and sunny slopes of the Maungatua Ranges. His old spirit of lawlessness returned with renewed vigor, and by way of speedily establishing for himself a local habitation and name, he "stuck-up" 23 persons during one day. His capture soon followed, and he was sentenced to eight years' penal servitude in Dunedin Gaol. His exemplary prison conduct again brought him under the notice of the gaol functionaries, and on the expiration of the sixth year of his term His Excellency the Governor granted him a free pardon. About a fortnight ago he was discharged from custody. Shortly before his discharge, and while at work in the quarries, Garrett sustained a severe injury in the knee, which necessitated his going into hospital after leaving the gaol. While under medical treatment he received a message from the chief commissioner of police, inquiring if it was his (Garrett's) intention to remain in the Colony. Garrett replied that he did intend to remain in Otago, because he could secure an honest livelihood in New Zealand; but that his well-known character in Victoria would debar him of all chance of remunerative employment. He likewise expressed his willingness to go to America if the Government would guarantee his passage. This answer seems not to have dovetailed with the police-commissioner's arrangements, and he accordingly proceeded to the hospital, accompanied by eight subordinates, arrested Garrett, refused him an interview with his medical advisers, bundled him into a dray, and subsequently shipped him, in the custody of two detectives, on board the steamer Auckland, which was about sailing for Melbourne, at which city he was to be charged, under the Convicts Prevention Act, with being a prisoner of the Crown illegally at large. When placed in front of the dock on Saturday, Garratt persistently protested against being remanded. He mentioned that he had no desire to remain in Melbourne, where "people would set their dogs upon him;" and that he preferred returning to Otago. He further insisted that the offence with which he was charged was a compulsory one, and had been pressed upon him by the malevolent course adopted by the New Zealand police. In fact, he was guiltless of the charge. The act provided a penalty of two years' imprisonment for any felon landing in this colony who had not exercised the privileges of a freeman for two years previously. One of the detectives who accompanied Garrett from New Zealand informed the Bench that the prisoner had been arrested without a warrant. Superintendent Lyttelton read a letter which had been received by Captain Standish from the police department at Otago, intimating that the time of the Auckland's sailing prevented the issuing of a warrant, and that the prisoner had been "forwarded" without the document. Mr Sturt censured the course Mr Branigan had taken in the matter. The prisoner was allowed "seven days to leave" the colony, otherwise he would be sent back to Otago. Garratt said if the Government would not grant him a passage he would be "knocked about like a shuttlecock" between the police functionaries of Otago and Victoria. He was told to bring the matter before the Chief Commissioner in Melbourne. -Otago Witness, 7/3/1868.
Shortly before Garrett, about whom so much has been said by the Otago press, left Melbourne for New Zealand, he addressed the following letter to the "Herald": — "Respected Sir, — In your issue of (I believe) Monday, I read that the convict Henry Garrett had been brought from New Zealand to Melbourne, and that it was hoped that I (yes, I, for I am that person) would not be allowed to make this colony the place of my permanent abode. Now let us, my dear sir, with calmness and good feeling, discuss the matter. And, first, why should you take the pleasure — it cannot be a duty — to keep branding me as convict? Let me ask, am I at the present time one? The most that can with truth be said is, that I am an ex-one; and had this term been used it would have been as well. Might you not with more justice both to me and the public, and more dignity to your profession, used, as others have done, the term man? You cannot be a stranger to the meaning of the old English saying of fair play, which means not to strike or kick a man when down. Now, what is it but doing this, to keep reiterating these hard names? If every man's faults were known, as mine are, who would escape stoning? Am I not sufficiently miserable and degraded? Have you read in the other papers how I have been dragged from amongst those who felt interested in me, and would have assisted me, and thrown (destitute, and helpless from being crippled) amongst strangers, who form their opinion of me from the Press. I feel sure you are but unthinkingly, and not wantonly using the influence you possess, to excite the easily aroused prejudice of the public against a man who, seeing his former errors, faults, or whatever they may be, is struggling with no ordinary difficulties to prove he is not the incorrigible and unmitigated ruffian it has been said he is. Would it not have been pleaaanter, wiser, and juster to have advocated that the Government, and if it refused, that public benevolence should afford me the means of subsisting honestly during the few days I am compelled to remain, and to defray my passage back where I am desirous to go? Had it not been for the kindness of one or two who I saw for the first time on board the Auckland, I should have had to accept the refuge of the gaol, or resorted again to the only resource left such as me — crime. This last I am determined not to do, if I can by any means avoid it. Trusting to your charity and good feeling, I beg the insertion of this in your paper, or such remarks upon my case as it may deserve. I beg to subscribe myself, yours most respectfully, Henry Garrett. — 25th February. -Southland Times, 10/4/1868.
RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.
Tuesday, November 10th. (Before John Gillies, Esq., RM.) Drunkenness. — John Holden and James* Smeaton, were each fined 10s for drunkenness. Garrett, the Burgar. — Henry Garrett, alias Rowse, was charged with having feloniously entered the premises of Mr Thomas Allan, seedsman, Princes street, on the 9th inst., and stolen therefrom a brass syringe, a trowel, a gold brooch, and a quantity of seeds and confectionery to the value of L4; he was also accused of having in his possession a number of house-breaking implements, contrary to the provisions of the 9th section of the Vagrant Ordinance, 1866. The Commissioner of Police stated that it was not his intention to proceed with the case that day. He merely proposed to give evidence sufficient to justify His Worship remanding the prisoner, in order that he (the Commissioner) might, under the 9th section of the Ordinance, instruct the prisoner's lodgings to be searched. Constable Nagle then stated that, on the day previous, he was watching the prisoner for several hours, but that at about three o'clock he escaped his vigilance. On passing Farley's Buildings, however, at four o'clock, he was requested to apprehend the prisoner on a charge of feloniously entering Mr Allan's shop. Witness searched him and found five large keys and a bunch of small skeleton keys. One of the larger keys opened the back door of Mr Allan's premises. Samuel Macarthy, a locksmith, deposed that the keys produced were skeleton keys, and that they would open cupboards, padlocks, &c. All ordinary door locks could be opened with the larger keys. The Commissioner then asked that the prisoner might be remanded until Thursday, to-morrow. The request was complied with, and the prisoner was removed. -Otago Daily Times, 11/11/1868.
HYPOCRISY.
To the Editor of the Otago Daily Times
Sir. — I believe that whenever there is a prevailing impression abroad with regard to any individual calculated to bring that person into public detestation, it is but right of any one who knows such impression to be founded in error, to remove it by stating the plain facts of the case.
I find, both from the public prints, and after conversation, with several persons upon the subject, that it is pretty generally believed that Henry Garrett has made religious professions of a hypocritical character, and on the minds of some that he has even been received by the Church.
I would simply state that I have known Garrett from the first day of his arrival here, a year ago, from Melbourne, up till this present time; that he was for a considerable portion of that time in my employment; that I have frequently had conversations with him of a religious character; and that so far from professing to receive any "religious impressions, as they are commonly called, he has from the first to the last, always declared himself to be an unbeliever, both in the Bible as the Word of God, and in the Lord Jesus Christ as His Son.
These facts being well known to all those who have taken any interest in him, I need scarcely say that the impression that he has been received by the Church, is quite erroneous.
I confess to being both surprised and grieved when your local of this morning caught my eye, as I had certainly thought that he had learned, and learned thoroughly, the truth of the old saying, that "honesty is the best policy." I had also trusted to other considerations, not, however, of a religious character, to keep him from any violation of the law.
The man is bad enough as he is, let us not make him worse than he is; he may be a very dangerous criminal, he is not that character we must all despise — a religious hypocrite.
— I am, &c J. AITKEN CONNELL. -Otago Daily Times, 11/11/1868.
GARRETT AGAIN.
Henry Garrett, alias Rouse, is again in trouble. It will be remembered that shortly after his discharge from gaol, after undergoing a sentence of eight years' penal servitude, for robbery under arms, the action taken by the Commissioner of Police, in endeavoring to remove such a social pest from the Province, was much commented upon. Garrett was elevated into a hero; much sympathy was expressed for him; the Commissioner of Police and the police were charged with cruelty, with hunting a man willing to be honest to death, and with preventing him from redeeming his character. Garrett came back from Melbourne, frequented a place of worship, and managed to ingratiate himself into the good graces of a number of the members of that congregation. Aid was given him in every possible way; work was secured for him in his trade of cooper, and as he was a good tradesman, he has been in constant employment, and has earned good wages. But the police did not believe in the sincerity of his protestations, and accordingly kept him under close surveillance, and yesterday proof was given that he had been playing a hypocritical game. Mr Allan, the seedsman of Princes street, was passing his own premises, with a friend, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and had occasion to go into the shop by the back way. To his surprise he found the door unlocked, and upon reaching a second door, also unlocked, he found Garrett in the shop. The latter attempted to escape, but was secured and kept until the aid of Constable Nagle — who was passing at the time — was obtained.
Mr Allan had taken the precaution to conceal his cash-box, and the property stolon by the prisoner was of trifling value. When his house was searched, a revolver and ammunition and a most formidable knife were found. That the opinion formed by the police as to Garrett's reform was correct, is clearly proved by the fact that he is caught red-handed committing a robbery, having no possible motive for being dishonest. Frequenting, as he did. Mr Brunton's Church, he had ample opportunity of observing how accessible Mr Allan's premises were; and he was evidently well-prepared, for on his person no less than seventeen skeleton keys were found.
The above is from the "Daily Times" of Tuesday. In its issue of the following day that journal states that on Tuesday Garrett was brought up at the Resident Magistrate's Court. This circumstance induced a large number of persons to assemble near the Provincial Buildings soon after 10 o'clock. Not half the number, however, were able to gain admittance to the Court. After the evidence of the apprehending constable and Mr Macarthy, locksmith, had been taken, the prisoner, on the application of the Commissioner of Police, was remanded until Wednesday, to enable his lodgings to be searched before the case is further proceeded with. -North Otago Times, 13/11/1868.
RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.
Tuesday, November 17th.
(Before James Fulton, Esq., R.M.)
GARRETT THE CONVICT.
Shop Lifting. — Henry Garrett alias Rouse was brought up on remand charged with having, on or about the first of July last, stolen a cloak, value L2 5s, from the shop of A. Walker, George street. The following evidence was given — the Commissioner of Police conducting the prosecution: —
Lavinia Walker: I am the wife of Alfred Walker, draper, George street. The cloak produced is one I missed from the shop on the evening of the 1st of July. I identify it by the loop, which I sewed on myself. I did not sell it to anybody. I do not know the prisoner.
Margaret Henderson: The prisoner lodged at my house. A large white box, taken away by Detective Thomson, belonged to him.
On the Magistrate asking the prisoner if he had any question to ask of the witness, he replied in the negative, and added, "But I have a request to make — one that I think you will, in common justice and fairness, grant. I lodged with that lady, and I owe her for two weeks' board and lodging — L2, I think. I would like to have that paid out of the money that was in the purse taken from me.
The Commissioner of Police: I will see that it is done.
The Prisoner: Thank you; that is all I want.
Detective Thomson then gave evidence of finding the cloak in a box, which had been proved to belong to the prisoner. This closed the case, and the Magistrate deferred judgment.
Skeleton Keys. — The prisoner was then charged, on the information of Constable John Nagle, with having .in his possession, on the 9th inst., a number of housebreaking tools, contrary to the Vagrant Ordinance. The informing constable stated that, on arresting him, he found in his possession seventeen skeleton keys and a piece of candle.
Samuel McCarthy, locksmith, Stuart street, said that the keys produced were skeleton keys. Some of them would open ordinary door locks, others were for night latch keys, and others for cabinets, desks, tills, and boxes.
This closed the case, and judgment was again reserved.
Breaking into Premises. — Garrett was next charged with having, on the 9th inst., feloniously broken into Mr Allan's shop, Princes street, and stolen therefrom a brooch, a garden syringe and trowel, packets of seeds, and of fancy confectionery. The following was the evidence given: —
James Prior: I am a seedsman in the employment of Mr Allan. I was in the shop on the morning of the 9th inst., the holiday. I locked both back doors at a quarter past eight in the morning. The front door was locked from the inside. I took the keys with me. The back door is approached through a passage in Farley's Buildings.
Thomas Allan: I am the proprietor of the shop in Princes street referred to by the last witness. I was passing the shop at four o'clock in the afternoon of the fifth inst. I was with Mr Reid, and I went into Farley's passage with the intention of going into the shop. I found the back door closed to, but unlocked. I said to my friend, "Prior must have left the door open," and in his company I went in. We came to the middle door, and found it also closed, but unlocked. When we opened that door we were in the shop. I pushed open the door, and it was all dark. I said, "There's someone in the shop, strike a light." As I said the words he struck a light, and on turning round I saw a man by my side. I caught hold of him by the arm, and at the same moment Reid said he's got a syringe, and seized him also. I asked the man what he wanted there. He said, "Don't take me, I've suffered enough already, and I'll square it." Reid exclaimed, "Come out into the passage then." He did so, and he again asked us to square it, and walked quietly with us until we called in the constable. I identify the syringe and the garden trowel, and the seeds produced. I saw them taken from the prisoner's person by Constable Nagle. I also saw the packets of fancy confectionery taken from his person by the constable. I had goods of this sort in the shop. I cannot positively identify the brooch produced, but it is like one that was in a box in the till. I saw the constable take a number of keys from the prisoner, one of which opened both the back doors of my shop.
Mr Reid, who had been referred to by the last witness, gave evidence corroborative in every particular.
Wilhelmina Allan, the wife of the prosecutor, identified the brooch which had been found on the prisoner as her property. She had last seen it in a match box in a side drawer in the shop. She had placed it there herself.
Constable Nagle: I saw the prisoner on the afternoon in question in Princes street. I missed him from the street, and had passed Mr Allan's shop a few yards when Mr Allan called me back, and gave the prisoner into my custody. I found the garden syringe, the trowel, the seeds, the confectionery, the brooch, a piece of candle, and the skeleton keys produced, in his possession. One of the keys opened the two doors of Mr Allan's premises. I took the prisoner to the watchhouse.
The prisoner, on being duly cautioned, said, "I have nothing to say." He was then committed to take his trial at the next sitting of the Supreme Court — Criminal Session.
Stealing from a Shop. — The prisoner Garrett was further charged with having, during the month of October, entered the shop of Benjamin Bagley, chemist, Great King street. The articles with which the prisoner was charged with stealing, almost covered the solicitors' table. Amongst them were several dangerous poisons — strychnine, chloroform, arsenic, henbane, foxglove, together with ammonia, bronzonette, perfumes, smelling-salts, perfume fountains, brushes, combs, fancy soaps, &c., &c. Mr Bagley senior identified many of the articles produced as his property. Some bore his private mark; others bore the retail price in his own handwriting, and others he identified as being made up from private formulas, or being of a class only imported by himself. He stated that he had two shops, the one in Great King street being in charge of his son. No one lived on the premises. Mr Bagley junior also identified some of the goods, and said that on going to the shop on one or two occasions he found a difficulty in opening the door, and had thought at the time that some one had been tampering with the lock.
Miss Henderson repeated the evidence given by her in a previous case.
Detective Thomson stated, that in the company of Detective Farrell, he had visited the prisoner's lodgings, and had got a box from there, in which the goods produced and sworn to by Mr Bagley and his son were found. He produced a key, one of the lot found on the prisoner, which fitted the lock of the door of Mr Bagley's premises.
The prisoner, who reserved his defence, was then committed for trial upon this charge. For stealing the cloak he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour; and for having the implements of house-breaking in his possession, he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, also, with hard labour. -Otago Witness, 21/11/1868.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3rd. (Before His Honour Mr Justice Ward.)
Garrett the convict.
Henry Garrett, who had been convicted on the previous day, was brought up for sentence.
In answer to the Judge's Associate, the prisoner said his age was 53. He had nothing to say why judgment should not be passed upon him. The Judge said — In passing sentence on you, Henry Garrett, I must speak in a very different tone from that in which I have addressed any other prisoner convicted at the present session. Your career, as far as it can be traced, has been one of continuous crime, both in this and another colony in which you lived. I shall feel it my duty to see that for some time at least, you shall have no opportunity of committing further crime. I have before me two indictments to which you have pleaded guilty, charging you with the serious crimes of housebreaking and robbery; and when I consider, in one case, at all events, the nature of the articles you have stolen — the poisonous drugs you have selected from a chemist's shop — I cannot doubt that had you not been arrested, you would in all probability have been standing in that dock to answer for the highest crime known to the law. But for that evil intent you will have to answer to another and a higher Judge than I. I feel it my duty to pass upon you what will, in all probability, prove a life-long sentence at your age. But there is one last and highest Tribunal, before which judge and criminal, accuser and accused must one day appear, and I exhort you to spend the remainder of your days, imprisoned as you will be, in preparing for that last and most awful Tribunal. And if you do do, you will feel grateful eventually that your career of crime is cut short, even by a life-long imprisonment. The sentence of the Court is. that for each of the crimes you have committed, you be sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, and that the sentences be cumulative. -Otago Daily Times, 4/12/1868.
The notorious bushranger Garrett, has been found guilty at the Supreme Court, Dunedin, upon two charges of house breaking. He wad sentenced to 20 years' penal servitude. The 'New Zealand Sun,' 4th December, in writing: upon this subject says: — "The Judge intended the sentence to be one of life-long banishment from the world. Twenty years of prison-life, added to the fifty-five years which have already passed over him must at any rate bow down the strong frame and deprive its possessor of much of the power to do evil if the will still survives. And so Henry Garrett passes to his living death, and moralists may vainly seek an explanation of the insatiable disposition to crime he has displayed." -Southland Times, 11/12/1868.
In 1881, the New Zealand Herald reproduced a summary of Garrett's criminal career up to that date - I reproduce the portion beginning with the end of his sentence for highway robbery.
At this stage of his career he took in hand a new line — avowed piety — daily giving utterance to earnest exhortations to his fellow prisoners to turn from their wickedness and live, quoting copiously from the sacred writings, with which his mind appeared well stored. This dodge — known in every prison in England as the "pious move" — is too frequently practised successfully, both in the old country and in the new. Weakminded chaplains become instruments in obtaining concessions, privileges, and allowances, and sometimes even of shortening the terms of sentence of criminals who play well this part of the rogue's trade. So with Garrett; his apparent repentance and sincere piety soon attracted attention in the proper quarter, and he found himself once more at large, before his time of sentence otherwise would have been served, with a good character, obtained by pious fraud and persistent hypocrisy, and with the assistance of the gaol chaplain, whom he had so far used for his purposes. Finding that outward piety had succeeded so well in tempering the winds to the shorn lamb while in gaol, Garrett determined to continue in that line of business. Henceforth he was to appear to suffering humanity as "the .brand snatched from the burning," determined to go forth preaching salvation to the world at large, and to the people of New Zealand in particular. Through the continued assistance of the weak-minded gaol chaplain Garrett joined one of the dissenting sects as local preacher and burning brand, and soon became noted for his good deeds and eloquent discourses. Had he pushed his talents in this direction there is no doubt whatever that he would have reached a pinnacle with the sect to which he had become attached. But the police, those wretched scrutineers of men, those searchers after iniquity, would not let this pious man continue in his labour of love. It appears there had been many robberies, and not a few daring burglaries, but no trace of the delinquents could be found, until a police officer — not the gaol chaplain — just fancied that Garrett's conversion had been too sudden to be sincere, and ventured upon inquiry and search of the pious man's residence, with the astounding result that while the converted man had preached peace! peace! he had discoursed upon his favourite text of "Owe no man anything;" while he had worn sackcloth for his early transgressions, and broadcloth for his disguise, he had been systematically carrying on his old game. The police found at his house the most complete set of burglars' tools ever found in the colonies.
Further inquiry led to the fact that, in one month of his service in the church, he had committed no fewer than 48 robberies. For these trifles he again became a Government employee, and served, without any further attempt at piety, a full sentence, wisely dropped by the gaol chaplain and the wellmeaning sect whose cloak he had worn so successfully to cover his crimes. How he passed from New Zealand to London, the scene of his next labours, this informant is in ignorance, and he had passed from memory until the news reached us of his attempted escape from Pentonville and fortunate failure — fortunate in every -way for the people of this country, as it is more than likely, under the loose immigration system which prevails at our Agent-General's office in London, this notorious and clever scoundrel would .have succeeded in appearing in our midst to swell the ranks of the unemployed under the new garb of an assisted immigrant. If any youngsters just venturing to embark on the perilous voyage of crime should read this biography, they would do well to remember that the system of police supervision existing in England and all the colonies is such that, aided by science —the electric wire and the use of the photographic lens — there is no sure footing for him on the slippery path; that if able, bold, determined men, mortals possessed of large brain and genius, cannot escape the vigilant eye of the police, what chance can inexperienced youth have? Perhaps in the mind of such an one the conviction may be developed and strengthened to a course of honest toil and peace. If this good should result, the writer's labour in condensing the life and failure of a clever criminal will not have been in vain. — Sydney Town and Country Journal. -NZ Herald, 15/1/1881.
CHRISTCHURCH.
November 17
An attempt at house robbery was frustrated last night. Shortly before 9 p.m. the occupiers of Messrs Langman and Co.'s wine and spirit stores in the new block of buildings at the corner of Armagh and Manchester streets returned home, and found that a man had effected an entrance into the building. When discovered he was evidently endeavoring to conceal himself. Constable Wallace was called in, and arrested the intruder, who was none other than Henry Garrett, a notorious character who has recently been discharged from gaol after undergoing a twenty years sentence for house breaking in Dunedin. He was taken to the police depot, and when searched a number of keys were found on him so filed as to fit any ordinary door-lock. There is little doubt that it was by one of these keys that Garrett unlocked the door, and entered Mr Longman's establishment. -Daily Telegraph, 17/11/1882.
Garrett received a sentence of seven years.
DEATH OF A NOTED CRIMINAL.
The news of the death of Henry Garrett will be of interest to those who remember the records of crime in Australia and New Zealand. He died Wednesday night, aged 72, of decay of the system. The career of a man who has spent fifty Christmases in gaol was necessarily a strange one ; and though a great criminal, there were some points in Garrett’s character which were not unamiable or altogether bad. It is believed that he was first driven to evil courses by domestic trouble, and that he began by committing petty offences. His first long sentence was passed in Birmingham in the year 1842, when he was condemned to 10 years’ transportation, and sent to Norfolk Island. In 1855 he committed a most daring bank robbery in Ballarat. The robbery was done in broad daylight. Garrett posted a notice on the bank door that it would be closed for an hour, and then entering the building presented a revolver at the heads of the officials. He thus managed to take about £6000, and escaped with it to London. He was followed thither by a detective from Australia and captured. The detective saw him in the street, and, not being sure of his man, gave a “cooey.” At this, Garrett, to whom the sound was familiar, turned round sharply, and the detective, being certain that he was the person sought, took him into custody. On being taken out to Australia he was tried, and received a sentence of 10 years. He was present when Mr Price, at one time Superintendent of the convict establishments in Australia, was murdered by the prisoners. On the breaking out of the diggings, Garrett came over to New Zealand, and distinguished himself by sticking up and tying to trees seventeen men on the road between Dunedin and Gabriel’s Gully. Among the victims was Father Moreau, a French priest, whose memory is held in reverence both in Otago and in this district. When he had the seventeen tied up and their pockets emptied, like a gentle thief as he was, he made tea for them, and filled and lighted the pipes of such as smoked, and rode away, ordering them not to move for two hours. It is stated that there are men now in Wellington who made his acquaintance on that occasion, and among them possibly a member of Parliament. He seldom, however, long enjoyed the fruits of his industry, and in May, 1862, he was sentenced to eight years’ penal servitude. This sentence he cannot have served to the end, as in 1868 he got one year for being found with housebreaking tools in his possession, and not long afterwards twenty years for breaking into a shop and stealing valuable goods. He was released in 1882 by special permission, and for a short while devoted himself to literature. He contributed several biographies of gentlemen in his own way of business in weekly parts to a society journal in Christchurch. The name he wrote under was “Clodhopper,” and among the lives were those of Silas Eli, Frederick Plummer, Robert Butler, and several other practicioners of eminence. They are said to have been exceedingly well done, showing great knowledge of character, and a curious and accurate acquaintance with facts. He also began a life of himself, which, unfortunately for literature, was interrupted. He was arrested in November, 1882, for being found in a wholesale warehouse with about 40 or 50 skeleton keys in his possession, and received a sentence of seven years, from which he was released by death Wednesday night at 12 o’clock. Garrett sometimes called himself Rouse, which the Wellington Gaol authorities believe to have been his real name. Through all his career of crime, it is not recorded against him that he once shed human blood, and, like some of the highwayman of old, he never injured or robbed a woman. He was a man who had from his secluded life read much, and yet at the same time he had mixed and conversed with men sprung from all positions and of the most curious experiences. His memory was good, and he had a vast fund of information. His name was a household word at Pentridge, where he was regarded as a high legal authority. He had studied science as well as law, and was a warm disciple of Mr Darwin, being fully convinced that his principles were, fully proved. He was not sound in his religious views, and it is stated he had no belief in God or devil. Shortly before his death, however, there were signs that this was not altogether the case. While in Dunedin and other gaols, Garrett was a most turbulent prisoner. At one time he threatened the life of a gaoler, and was kept in solitary confinement for three years. In Wellington, however, his conduct has been quite different, and for Mr Garvey, the Governor of the Gaol, he would do anything. Mr Garvey says he could have trusted Garrett at any time to go a message outside the prison with the certainty that he would return at the appointed hour. He was a capital, industrious workman, and while he was at Mount Cook was found exceedingly useful, doing, while in health, the work of three ordinary men. Certain work in connection with the laying of rails for the gaol tramways he did particularly well, saving a good deal of money to the department. To common thieves he had a strong objection,, and would never associate with them, holding them in high contempt. Whenever any of those belonging to the humbler branches of his business went to him for advice he sent them away. With all the prison officials in Wellington he was perfectly well behaved, and he also showed himself amenable to discipline, there never being a complaint against him. On the 10th of last July, Garrett was taken ill, and Mr Garvey, seeing that he required special treatment, recommended his removal from Mount Cook to the Terrace Gaol, where there is a hospital. Mr J. S. M. Thomson, the Visiting Justice, accordingly ordered his removal, and he has been there ever since. The old man has been treated kindly in his last illness, and as an instance of this Dr Johnson only Wednesday afternoon sent him a bottle of wine from his own cellar. Everything, also, that could be done has been done by the gaoler, warders, and the other prisoners. In cold weather he has always been weak for the last eighteen months, but in fine weather he has always worked. The Ven. Archdeacon Stock has been moat kind and attentive to Garrett, who was grateful and attached to him, though the latter never would take part on religious subjects. Wednesday night Garrett was evidently very ill. He was in bed, and about 7 o'clock he turned to the wall, and moaned "My God! my God!" Mr Garvey immediately sent for Archdeacon Stock who hurried to the gaol. Though Garrett listened to the Archdeacon with respect, he asked him not to talk of religious matters, as it harassed him. After that he sank fast, and closed his strange and turbulent life just at midnight. -NZ Mail, 4/9/1885.
An inquest was held at the Terrace Gaol, before Mr H, S. Wardell, R.M., yesterday morning, on the body of Henry Garrett, a convict who died at that place on Wednesday night last. A verdict of death from natural causes was returned by the jury after bearing the medical evidence. The funeral took place at 2 p.m., and was followed to the Church of England Cemetery by Mr Garvey, the Governor of the Gaol, and six of the best conducted prisoners in convict garb. The foreman of the jury, Mr George Leslie, at the inquest held on the body of Henry Garrett, rather singularly turned out to be one of the seventeen whom Garrett stuck up at Maungatua, on the road between Dunedin and Gabriel’s Gully, The day before the sticking up Mr Leslie had given Garrett and his mate a lift in his waggon, and Garrett on learning this fact treated Mr Leslie in an exceptionally friendly way, giving him tobacco, and not even searching him — a lucky thing for Mr Leslie, who had about £900 worth of gold about his person at the time. -NZ Times, 5/9/1885.
After Garrett's death, the Otago Witness was able to offer something of a "scoop" - Garrett's own writings concerning his life and experiences in the prisons of Australia and New Zealand, and his reflections on those he met during an estimated fifty years or so of incarceration. How had they been acquired?
INTRODUCTORY.
[It is necessary that I should, in the first instance, inform the public as to how I became possessed of these papers: — Six or seven years ago a number of prisoners were engaged making some alterations at the Industrial School, Caversham, near Dunedin, at which place I was station-master. The time was winter; and for New Zealand the weather was very cold and wet, accompanied by frequent falls of snow. The prisoners would, on their return, reach the station ten minutes or so before the due time of arrival of the train which conveyed them back to Dunedin. Upon one of these occasions I observed a prisoner — a tall old man— apparently suffering much from the cold and wet. I suggested that he should be allowed to take a seat and place his feet to the hot stove. The officer in charge readily assented, and the old man thanked us both for the kindness shown. This was repeated during the few days the inclement weather lasted. The old man, I was informed, was Garrett, the notorious bushranger.
One morning subsequently, Garrett, when leaving the train from Dunedin, stepped into my office and hurriedly passed over a bundle of papers, saying, "Keep these private till I am dead," then quickly fell in among the gang and marched on to his work.
I have kept these papers — I have often perused them, and judging from what I have seen myself, in one of the largest prisons under the British Crown, believe thorn to be substantially true. This conviction is further strengthened by comparing notes with Marcus Clarke's clever work "His Natural Life," dealing with the same question and detailing the horrors of the penal system more fully, and covering the same period of time that Garrett writes about. The harrowing pictures drawn by Marcus Clarke are fully supported by the evidence produced at the official inquiry ordered by the Government in England, as well as the notes of the medical and clerical gentlemen in charge of the settlement. I have, however, outside of this testimony, satisfied myself that the pictures of human suffering under John Price are, if anything, under-drawn, both by Garrett and Marcus Clarke. A man named or known by the name of Bill Roberts, recently died in the Dunedin Hospital. This man lived in Caversham for several years, and was chiefly employed by the City Council of Dunedin in labouring work. Bill Roberts was a fellow convict of Garrett's — came out in the same vessel with him, went through the Norfolk Island and Macquarrie horrors, and was present when Price was killed at the quarries in Melbourne, and from him I have heard stories unfit for print.
Many who read these papers will say, "what a pity that one who could write so well, in the face of such difficulties and under such trying circumstances, should be lost to society. What an ornament, under more favourable circumstances, he would have become!" Nothing of the kind. Garrett was by nature a thief — was, in fact, a born thief, and all the cultivation in the world could no more have made a radical change in his mental organisation than it could, without injury or pain, have added a foot to his height or diminished his stature by that amount.
From the brief survey I had of his head I have no hesitation in asserting that Nature, in her clearest accents, proclaimed him a dangerous man, but not a cruel one. His massive intellect, aided by a full and active organ of secretiveness, enabled him to assume any character he chose. This combination, aided by a most powerful frame, was well calculated to inspire respect among his class, and that he should be looked up to as a leader need surprise no one. When, therefore, I use the term "a dangerous man," I do not do so in a blood-thirsty sense. I wish to be thoroughly understood on this point: it is the depth of cunning with which an active and powerful intellect directs and guides the lower organs of the mind to accomplish its object.
Garrett was a man who could never resist the temptation to acquire. His life must have been one series of broken resolves. In prison there was no temptation to steal, and acquisitiveness was passive; on the other hand, when mixing with the world, this faculty became aroused by every passing object which caused it excitement and over-riding all others, it held sway. For such inordinate desire modern science has invented the appellation of "Kleptomania" for the more respectable class, though it is better known among the lower orders by the well-worn term, "stealing." — J. F.] -Otago Witness, 13/3/1886.
[All Rights Reserved.]
RECOLLECTIONS
OF
CONVICT LIFE
IN NORFOLK ISLAND AND VICTORIA
With Prison Portraits, being Sketches of Criminals and Prison Governors, including the early Life, Career, and Death of John Price, and of the Bushrangers Bill Morgan, Burgess, &c.
By Henry Garrett, alias Rouse, the Bushranger.
DICK BURGESS.
Chapter XIII.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit: there is more hope of a fool than he. — Proverbs.
By way of contrast, I hang the portrait of Dick Burgess side by side with that of Captain Melville.
A few weeks ago I read Burgess' autobiography, written in Nelson Gaol while he was awaiting his trial. Of its merits as a composition I need only say that it is as much beyond criticism as he himself was beyond pity, and it verifies the truth of the old aphorism that "A little learning is a. dangerous thing."
Poor Dick! For his own sake he ought never to have written that nasty thing. He did so with a purpose few will perceive, although it was patent to me at first sight. That purpose was a double one: to exonerate Levy and Kelly, and to make out to his own class that he was a hero. He failed in both objects. His former associates well know that the long catalogue of robberies and murders he enumerated was a tissue of lies. They are false feathers which he plucked from every bird in the convict aviary to adorn himself with. The free public — the few who will read his life — may be under the impression that he was the terrible fellow he represents himself to be from the war-paint with which he has, like a North American Indian, bedaubed himself, but those who were intimately acquainted with him are well aware, that his boastings are simply a repetition of AEsop's fable of "The Ass in the Lion's Skin."
His attempt to exonerate Levy and Kelly, though it did not have the ghost of a chance of success, was in strict accordance with the freebooter's notions of honour, and would have raised him in the estimation of men of his own stamp; but the approval this action might have brought was completely lost in the feeling of contempt aroused by his bedecking 'himself in stolen plumes.
Whatever may be the crimes, the vices, the faults, or the failings of convicts, they have an appreciation of each other's merits, and thoroughly despise the arrogant pretence which is the distinguishing characteristic of Dick's autobiography.
Burgess makes honourable mention of your humble servant as the greatest coward he ever knew — a statement I will not dispute, as every act of our two lives proves me to have been as cowardly as he was brave. I am also depicted as a dangerous infidel, and Dick, overflowing with pure Christian charity, prays for me. As these prayers were so efficacious in his own case — and if, like St. Peter and St. Paul of blessed memory, he still prays for the living — there is yet hope that through them even I may become a babe of grace, and join Holy Dick in the New Jerusalem.
I intended to have kept Dick's autobiography, but was unable to do so, in order to take some extracts from it — not (words missing) spirit of vindictiveness, for he is dead and beyond that, even if I had ever harboured any such feeling, which I have not, the estimate I formed of him has not been affected by anything he has said about me, for inside or outside our own class no one will judge me by what Dick says. This notice of his career will be just what it would have been had I never perused a line he had written, and the feelings I entertain towards him are the same — namely, pity and contempt for him as a man, a thief, and a writer.
In the account of his life Burgess commences — like all penitent thieves who have written their own historics — with the stale old assurance that he was born of honest, pious, and respectable parents. Of course he was. The nobility of his descent was stamped on every feature, as well as on every act of his adventurous life.
Like many others, Dick seeks distinction by blasting what ought to be, next to his own life, most dear to him — a mother's reputation. Dick's father, according to his own account, was a dashing Lifeguardsman. How contemptible the vanity which tries to attain notoriety by such means.
Burgess informs us that he came out to Geelong as a ticket-of-leave man. He may have done so, but I am tolerably certain those men were transported only to the penal Colonies. The probability is he landed at Hobart Town, and made his way to Port Phillip. As to his boasted proficiency as a London pickpocket, it is all bunkum. He never showed it in the Colonies — never attempted it; and a clever London thief will not abandon his craft and follow the honest occupation of a groom, as he did.
The first place I saw Burgess was in Geelong, about the year 1850. I was grubbing away at my trade, earning from 30s to 40s per week, while Dick boasted he was spending his £100 weekly. From his low, flash, Colonial style of dress, and his clothes not being over new or clean, he might have been taken for a doctor's flunkey, a livery-stable cad, a copper's flat, a publican's potboy, or any of a dozen equally respectable callings. I happen to know the man he boasts he was "copping" (horse-stealing) in company with — Phil Daley, a rank old duffer; a bigger loafer and "blower" never roamed in the Colonies.
Dick suddenly disappeared from my vision — where I had no thought or care, as we had not spoken to each other, but I found out in after years where he had gone to
Amongst ourselves there are as many grades as there are trades amongst honest people. The men who compose the lowest grade are termed "outsiders" — men who never take any active part in a robbery, but put others on to do it, stand by while it is carried out, and then step in for their share of the plunder. They adopt the same tactics when they hear that a robbery is about to be committed, and they are as a rule too much feared to meet with a refusal. Occasionally, however, they get more than they have bargained for, and consequently never try the game on again.
These mean fellows are the pariahs of our class — the jackals who feed on the offal and crumbs the nobler animals leave for or fling to them. They often lead hotter men than themselves to prey, and sometimes to destruction ; and, when possible, they are shunned, and not infrequently put aside. Inside or outside of gaol they are always the same: the most flash and impudent, the greatest "blowers," and the greatest curs.
Of this class Dick was a distinguished member. His sudden disappearance was caused by his putting himself in a highway robbery as an "outsider." Three men garotted some person; Dick was on the watch, and when the job was done stepped up and said, "I'm in it," and received a small dole. All four were arrested, tried, and convicted, and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from seven to ten rears.
This was the version the three principals gave of the affair, though in his autobiography Dick states that his first Colonial conviction was for the committal of some daring exploit. While doing this sentence he and some others — his three friends were not included in the number — made a foolish attempt at escape, which resulted in failure, and they were flogged. Dick bore his punishment without wincing, thereby gaining the reputation among his companions of being a fire-eater.
I am not aware how long he served of this sentence, nor do I know the date of his discharge nor when he was next convicted. There could not have been a great interval, however, between the two last, for in 1855 I found him on the lower deck of the President hulk; yet in his autobiography during this short space of time he squeezes in a countless number of robberies and murders — some committed by others, but most of them were emanations from Dick's imagination.
Frank Melville was on board the President at this time, and imparted to Dick that small amount of learning which the latter was so fond of parading. Dick attached himself to Melville like a spaniel, deluding himself with the idea that it gave him more importance in the eyes of his fellows.
On Burgess and Melville being transferred to the labour gang, Frank inducted him in the art of stone-cutting, in which, as at pocket-picking, he excelled all others, while Dick was a poor hand at either. In the prison quarry Burgess put on the same jaunty, flash air he assumed outside. Flattered by the notice Frank took of him, he made himself both ridiculous and offensive. He might have acquired from Frank a little modesty of demeanour and speech, had he followed his example ; but modesty was a quality as foreign to Dick's disposition as flashness was to Frank's. I have often wondered bow two such opposite natures agreed — how Frank tolerated Dick's vulgarity, and Dick respected those qualities in Frank which he himself did not possess.
When Melville and his party seized the boat belonging to the hulk, Dick was the only man who was struck by any of the many shots fired at them. This affair, in which he was a mere cypher, made him think more of himself than ever. He was prouder of having been one of the boat pirates than was the Earl of Cardigan of having led the Light Brigade at Balaclava — prouder of his slight wound than another man would be of the Victoria Cross or the Humane Society's medal. I am not certain whether Dick or myself left Pentridge first, but I think I got my discharge before he died. I next dropped across him in Dunedin. He met Tommy Kelly in Melbourne, and although they had not previously known each other they soon came to an understanding, and agreed to travel together as mates to New Zealand. Tommy found the passage-money — Dick, as usual, being "hard up." The partnership very nearly came to grief soon after it was entered into, through chivalrous Dick robbing and brutally ill-using an unfortunate girl he had been stopping with.
Burgess and Kelly left Dunedin For Gabriel's Gully, and upon arriving there they met an old Victorian acquaintance (in all probability a Vandiemonian), who with some "squareheads" was digging for the precious metal. He conducted them to his tent, and while he was absent for a few minutes procuring them some food they requited his hospitality by robbing his mate's bed or box of £70, leaving their friend under the suspicion of having stolen it. Almost before the money was missed they lost £40 of it in gambling with a shanty-keeper named Montgomery, whom Dick anathematises in his pious and edifying autobiography; but the mean theft — the largest he had as yet been engaged in — he is entirely silent about.
The robbing of the banker and gold-buyer at Gabriel's would have been an accomplished fact only that Kelly could not spur Dick up to the mark. He had not yet done anything in the "Toby" line. He boasted to so many persons about their intention to rob the banker that every loafer and thief on the diggings knew of it, and it even came to the knowledge of the banker himself and the police; so that there was no use in attempting to carry out the project. Kelly reproached him with having spoiled this "plant" before a whole yard of prisoners. On hearing of the projected robbery the police were on the alert, and hunted them up. They bolted, hiding in the scrub by day, and returning to the diggings at nightfall.
They were in the habit of frequenting a shanty kept by a woman whom they knew. One night there were several drunken diggers in this place, and the shanty-keeper had just robbed one of them of £90. Whispering to our two friends, she said:
"That cove holds it heavy. Ease him of his money, but not in here. Persuade him to go to some other place."
They did so, and on the way they knocked him down and robbed him, but all they got was a few shillings.
The man, not knowing the woman had been beforehand with Dick and Kelly, believed they had robbed him of all his money, and went to the camp and reported the matter to the police, who visited the shanty, and ascertained from the woman who the two men were with whom he had left the tent.
After robbing the digger Dick and Kelly returned to the shanty, and told the woman what, they had got. The shanty-keener pretended to be very indignant, and accused them of swindling her out of her share of the booty; and while quarrelling over this they were nearly nabbed by the police. They were regularly euchred. Next day the police and diggers hunted them out of the scrub and up the mountain side, firing at but not hitting them. In scrambling up the hill Dick's pistol accidentally went off, the ball penetrating his boot and slightly wounding him in the toe. The diggers and police thought they were being fired upon, and, getting tired of the chase, returned.
A day or two afterwards they were arrested. They were tried for firing on the police, convicted, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment each.
Kelly was thoroughly disgusted with Burgess, and taunted him with his want of pluck. This was terribly mortifying to Dick. The Press was ringing with accounts of his audacity and ferocity, and to have these nullified by taunts of cowardice from a mate, and before men of his own class, was not consoling to his vanity. How easy it is for the Press and police to manufacture a thief's reputation, or to destroy an honest man's credit.
While undergoing his three years' sentence Dick and several other prisoners, including myself, made an unsuccessful attempt to break out of gaol. Kelly, on account of Dick's want of courage, refused to join us. The two men had become bitter enemies since their conviction. Dick aimed to be in Dunedin what Melville had been in Melbourne — the hero of his class. But never was there a baser counterfeit, a more spurious imitation. It was intensely ridiculous to watch him, and see the airs of importance he gave himself.
Discontent at the prison treatment arose, and not without good cause, and Dick put himself up as the leader in endeavouring to obtain redress. I accord him all praise for the action he took on this occasion, though in this, as in all else he did, ho was prompted by a spirit of pure vanity. The magistrates refused to allow them any concession, and they were punished for complaining. Dick applied for permission to write a statement of the prisoners' grievances, with a view of submitting it to his Honor the Superintendent. This was regarded as rank treason, and punished accordingly. Dick then refused to work, and persuaded others to follow his example, until an inquiry was instituted and their complaints redressed.
The gaol authorities reported that the prisoners were mutinous and dangerous, and the same magistrates — three justices of the peace — sentenced Dick and two or three others to be flogged for mutiny.
That flogging changed Dick's whole nature. He had been flogged more than once previously, had suffered various other forms of punishment, and had always borne them with firmness. He had gloried in doing so for the sake of the importance it gave him in the eyes of others, and all the punishments he had hitherto undergone never affected his buoyant spirits. But this act of injustice — for it was nothing else — soured his disposition, and aroused feelings in him he had never known before.
The punishments he formerly received he had to some extent merited, but this one he did not, and the manner in which it was inflicted stung him to the quick. A canvas bag was drawn over his head, as if he were about to be hung. This was done so that he should not be able to recognise the flagellator. He could endure the punishment with fortitude, although he considered he did not deserve it, as it raised him in the estimation of his fellow prisoners; but the indignity of the bag was the last straw that broke the camel's back. It was adding insult to injury.
Dick protested, and would have struggled and fought to prevent the bag being brought into requisition, but he was already bound. He was jeered at and taunted, and the flogging was administered.
Kelly and I saw him next morning as he was washing himself. We had not spoken to him for months, but we did so then. He was in a very excited state, quite different to what I had ever before seen him. His laughing, devil-may-care air was gone, and in its place was that savage, stern look which may be observed in his portrait.
"I have incurred this," he said, "for you as well as the others, yet one of you taunted me with cowardice, and both of you have shunned me. You have been as unjust to me as the dogs who flogged me, and I feel your injustice more than I do theirs. One of you said that I was a coward, and the other believed it; but, by G — ! I will alter your opinion of me. I swear by Heaven!" — and he went down on his knees and clasped his hands in a theatrical manner — "to take a human life for every lash and indignity they have laid upon me!"
He was terribly in earnest, and we tried to calm him.
From that day Burgess and Kelly were fast friends, with a common object to cement their friendship. Tommy possessed the true spirit which I had for years been trying to instil into my class: that an injury done to the class is inflicted upon each individual, and ought to be resented as such. Dick had up to this time repudiated this doctrine, but when he endorsed it he went still further.
I have always discriminated between the guilty and the innocent, both individually and collectively. There was no discrimination in the resolution he had formed. Like a bull or a dog tortured to madness, ready to gore or bite anyone and everyone, Dick was determined to avenge his wrongs on the human race, irrespective of persons.
I showed him a letter in a newspaper, signed by a person calling himself "Roper," approving of the flogging, and recommending that the rogue's back should be kept sore.
"I wish I knew who Mr Roper was, and where he lives," he said savagely.
"I can tell you."
"If you can, do so." I told him.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "do you think so?"
"I am sure," I replied — "as sure as we call him 'Buttons.' It was he who put the bag over your face." There was an expression on Dick's face full of terrible meaning.
"Now," I asked, "what about your resolve? If he continues to live I would not give a penny for it. If you allow him to live you will never hurt anyone else, and if you spare his life it will enable him to repeat his act on yourself and on others."
"Do you want me to throw my life away for his?" he asked. "I shall not do it. A dozen lives will not satisfy me."
"You can dispose of him without throwing away your own life — without even suspicion pointing to you."
I showed him how it could be managed. He was thoughtful for a moment, and then said: "No, that will not suit me. I must see my victims die, look into their eyes, watch their tortures, and mock them as I have been mocked.''
"Whom do you mean?" I asked.
"Mean!" he answered, savagely and derisively. " I mean anybody — everybody."
"But why select those who have never injured you, and spare those who have?"
"All are alike to me. If they have not injured me themselves they have approved of others who have done so, and are therefore equally guilty."
I made no reply, for I felt the truth of his remarks.
Besides the gaol officials, a Press reporter and a few favoured individuals were present by invitation to witness and enjoy the sight of the flogging. They attended to gloat over the sufferings of those men just as they would have gone to a circus or a race meeting. It is said that they even made wagers as to whether the men would cry out or bear their punishment without flinching, just as it is known that bets have been made on the verdict of a jury when a human life was at stake.
The inhabitants of Dunedin were not aware that such an outrage was being perpetrated in the name of justice in their city gaol — or, if they knew, it gave them no concern. And persons living hundreds of miles away on the West Coast little thought that the official crime committed that day in Dunedin Gaol would result in their own deaths; that those men were converted into human tigers, panting for blood as a parched ox thirsts for water; that the sound of the blows falling upon naked human flesh proclaimed their doom; that their death-warrants were being signed in human blood. Yet such was to be the outcome of that wretched day's proceedings.
Coupled mysteriously together, as cause and effect, was that unjustifiable gaol flogging and those equally unjustifiable bush murders. For nothing can be more certain than that had Burgess not been flogged, taunted, and outraged, his disposition, which was naturally a happy, buoyant one, would not have been soured, and those murders would not have been committed. In my opinion those who caused that cowardly and unjust flogging to be inflicted are as morally guilty of the West Coast murders as Burgess was.
Wrongs like those of which he was made the victim may be likened unto stones wantonly flung into the air over a crowd; they are sure to fall upon someone, but the villain who throws them cares not whose head is broken so long as it is not his own. And who, I ask, is more deserving of hate and detestation at the hands of society — the cowardly official despots who torture men to madness and to the committal of indiscriminate murders, or the poor wretches who have been converted into murderers by the brutal treatment they received?
"Woe be to them by whom offence cometh." If we measure their guilt by the amount of buffering they inflicted upon the prisoners, and the length of its endurance, I consider that the murders were more humane in spirit than the tortures which led up to them. If we judge thorn both by their motives — the convict being driven to commit robbery and murder from greed and revenge, and the conduct of the others being actuated by sheer injustice and vindictiveness — there is not much to choose between them. If we weigh them by the taunts and cruelties they showered upon the prisoners, and the silent savageness displayed by Burgess, the latter contrasts most favourably with his official torturers.
We condemn as cruel the vivisection of birds and beasts, even when done in the interests of science and humanity; we have a law for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but there is no law for the prevention of cruelty to human beings. The worst unofficial ruffian unhung would not tie up a brute with cords as men are trussed up in gaol, or from a pure love of torture, under pretence of reforming its habits, flog it as prisoners are flogged. The civilisation and religion which tolerates and approves of such practices should be swept away as being no better than the custom which exists among the Indians of torturing their captives at the stake. So long as those cruelties are indulged in society has no reason to be surprised and no light to feel injured at their leading to murders as savage and indiscriminate as those committed by Burgess.
That his case does not stand alone, but is only one out of many instances which are becoming more numerous every year, I have shown elsewhere; and it is not only a natural consequence, but the inevitable result of severe and long-continued oppression acting on the recipients according to their different natures.
It is an old saying that "The schoolmaster is abroad." He is nowhere more active than in our convict prisons, where the apostles of revenge are incessant in their teachings, and are more powerful for evil than all the prison chaplains are for good, because they are more earnest and truthful. They also follow the example of their clerical prototypes, and quote Scripture in support of their views.
Dick Burgess resisted this teaching for years, and would have continued to do so, but what missionary zeal failed to effect official tyranny accomplished. In his case as in others — and this is nothing more than true — the best natures may be turned into the worst by persecution, and this was exemplified in the change that took place in Burgess' disposition. Some succumb sooner than others, but all must ultimately give in.
I do not believe that Dick possessed the calm, true courage of the man whom he set up as a model — Frank Melville. Frank's courage was innate, a part of himself — a quality which I do not think is capable of being acquired. Love of applause and fear of shame may and sometimes do spur people on to acts of apparent daring, but they cannot impart that constitutional courage which is inherent in a truly brave man.
If endurance of punishment with stoical firmness would entitle a man to be considered brave, then Dick might be looked upon in that light. But this alone does not constitute bravery. To endure pain that cannot be escaped from is quite a different thing to voluntarily, cheerfully, and fearlessly meeting danger which need not be incurred either from a sense of duty or from necessity.
So long as the eyes of the public and his own class were upon him, Dick would rush into danger and defy punishment, in order to bring himself into notice. But of that calm, determined courage, which faces and overcomes danger when no eye sees, no applause rewards — of that natural, impulsive daring which constituted a part of Frank Melville's character — Dick was totally deficient.
When I pointed out to him that, in accordance with his resolution, it wan his duty to dispose of the obnoxious "Buttons," he admitted that he ought to do so; and when I showed him how it might be done without any suspicion or danger attaching to him, then he objected simply because he would not have the credit of it. He would wish it to be suspected — even known that he was the man, and yet he would like to come off scatheless. Here his vanity and hungering after notoriety shone out. He had no satisfaction in doing anything unless it was the means of bringing him into notice. He was like certain swipers whom I have on different occasions come across, who thought it was no use getting drunk unless they made public exhibitions of themselves.
I told him that if he wanted to make a name for himself, the best plan he could adopt was to kill his man openly and publicly, as Casey shot the sheriff in California. He couldn't see it.
The renewed intimacy between Burgess and myself did not last. He wanted homage from me; I had none to give him. Kelly and I had a quarrel over this and other foolish things, and he threatened me with Dick's displeasure. The absurdity of the threat provoked my laughter, and I made use of expressions in reference to Dick which neither of them ever forgave me for. We never spoke again, and parted with hate on one side and contempt on the other.
To a nature so vain as Dick's was, to be regarded with pity or contempt was killing. He looked upon himself as a hero, exacting homage from all, and to meet with scorn instead was gall and wormwood to him — harder to bear than any punishment.
There is no necessity for me to recount his deeds on the West Coast; they are sufficiently well known. How far they hear out his claims to be considered a brave man I leave others to judge.
I am not going to condemn Dick for those actions, although I do not approve of them. I reserve my condemnation more for those whose brutal injustice made him capable of committing them. To condemn him and spare them would be unjust. It would be more than unjust — it would be almost insane to find fault with the effect; instead of the cause — like condemning an explosion or fire instead of the incendiary who applied the match.
Here I may ask a question which has been forming itself in my mind: Could I have been guilty of such acts as Burgess committed? Judging from my present feelings I reply that I could not. I have not as yet acquired the ferocity of disposition indispensable in carrying out such murderous undertakings; but, bearing in mind the Scriptural warning, "Boast not thyself," &c, I know not what I may become. I feel sure, however, that in the event of my giving way to feelings of revenge, I should aim at those who had injured me, though in doing so I would meet with the same fate as Burgess did — namely, death; for provocation does not justify murder, though public execration might not be so great. But what good or harm results from posthumous fame or infamy? Burgess was as right in his reasoning as society in its censures or rewards.
Although I do not intend to detail his acts on the West Coast, I shall make a few remarks in reference to them as well as to the autobiography in which he describes the murders with such sickening vanity and mock piety. In that pamphlet he has mirrored himself more faithfully than any effort of mine could have done. In it vanity is seen to be the ruling passion of his life.
Every known act of his Colonial life was done with the view of obtaining notoriety, and from no other motive. He reminds one of the animalcule contained in a drop of water, diminutive and harmless in reality, but viewed through the magnifying medium of an oxy-hydrogen microscope they are real monsters. So Dick by the magnifying powers of his autobiography has swelled himself into a monster. Throughout his whole career he was greedy for notoriety, the sure sign of a little mind, and the ruling passion was strong in death.
Those contemplated but frustrated robberies on the West Coast were all possible had a little tact and firmness been displayed, but the lack of those qualities made them impossible of accomplishment. What but his excessive vanity and itching for a name induced him to boastfully relate what most men would have hidden.
Dick's pretended penitence was but another means to the same end: to gain the notice and sympathy of the religious world. He thought of the penitent rascal of eighteen hundred years ago and of many others since then — how their names and memories had been perpetuated, and he sought by cowardice and fraud to have his name recorded on the roll of repentant sinners. The clergyman who administered the last Sacrament to him must or ought to have felt ashamed at doing so. The most sensational "Gospelmiller" would hardly care to point to Dick as "a brand plucked from the burning."
His theatrical act of kissing the rope, and calling it his "passport to heaven," was a piece of hypocrisy more offensive to propriety than Kelly's want of nerve was pitiable. I wonder he did not kiss or rub noses with that honest, respectable fellow, the hangman.
The hangman's halter a passport to heaven! Why, I may yet sneak into heaven through the same medium when all other means of grace and entrance have failed — that is, supposing I can screw my cowardly nature up to the commission of, similar honourable deeds as those which ensured Dick admission.
In the mouth of one who was, about being put to death in a good and holy cause, this saying would have been appropriate; but coming from Dick — a criminal blasted with the infamy of murders and unprovoked, unnecessary, and coldblooded as those of poor old Battle, Dobson, and others — it was rank and offensive blasphemy. Those standing round the scaffold must have blushed with shame for the religion which held out hopes of salvation to such as him. Well might an English writer say: "If such as he went to heaven, I would rather not be there."
Dick's pretended chivalry towards women is as false as everything else connected with him. The vanity which led him to blast his mother's reputation, and the dastardly brutality he displayed towards the poor Melbourne Magdalene, whom he first robbed and then nearly killed, do not favourably impress one as to the respect he entertained for the fair sex.
I will now refer to Dick's monotonous appeal for prayers to be offered up in his behalf. This portion of his autobiography reads like a litany. He calls upon everybody to pray for him, particularly those whom he contemplated robbing and murdering. "Pray for me! pray for me!" was his unwearied song. Whether there was more cowardice than hypocrisy in this I will not venture to say.
It was fortunate for Dick that prayers are but empty wind, far any prayers concerning him would not have been for his good. And though they had been uttered in Dick's favour, a justice-dealing God would be as deaf to all intercessions for mercy as Burgess was to poor old Battle's entreaty that he would spare his life. If Dick was so confident that the rope was his passport to heaven, why did he whine for prayers?
It is said that whatever a man strives most to seem, it may be taken for granted he is the very reverse. If this statement be true, which I do not doubt, what must we think of Dick's piety and bravery?
Comparing Dick with the man he modelled himself after — Frank Melville — he was, in contrast with him, a Brummagem imitation of the basest metal, which a thick coat of lacquer could not hide. For the benefit of those who have not seen his portrait I will describe his appearance.
He was about five feet seven inches in height; large, well-shaped head; florid complexion and heavy features; large, sensual mouth; hair and whiskers dark, almost black; well-proportioned body and limbs, with a swagger in his walk and a roll of the head that told of the estimation he had of himself.
His mental qualities are more difficult to describe than his physical development. His head indicated that he had plenty of brains, and if his excessive vanity could have been repressed he might, under proper culture and training, have made a good or average man. But I question whether any schooling or training would have curbed that intense self-esteem, and if not, then the Scriptural quotation with which I commenced this notice might serve as a fitting epitaph for him, to which I will add one of my own:
In life, in death, he hungered after reputation,
And clutched instead but execration and damnation.
(To be continued.) -Otago Witness, 30/4/1886.
The following letter seems to bear little relevance to the previous story by Garrett, but it does leave this author thirsty for more from Mr Garrett - if I can find it.
PRISON PICTURES.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION.
LIEUT.-COLONEL PRICE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS FATHER'S LIFE.
Editor Witness, — My attention has been called to a series of papers in the Otago Witness purporting to be written by Henry Garrett, ex-convict. In these papers there are serious reflections on my father, and as they are absolutely and emphatically a mass of falsehoods so far as he is concerned, I request you will be good enough to publish this letter denying this miscreant's statements. I will content myself so far as my father's name is concerned with a flat denial of the falsehoods published by you in relation to the following matters: —
A. The parentage and early training of my father. — He was never at sea in his life except as a passenger, but was educated at Charterhouse and Brazenose College, Oxford, and read for the bar. His parentage I need scarcely dwell upon, but the inquisitive may become acquainted with it by reference to "Burkes Peerage and Baronetage."
B. His marriage and consequent advancement. My father, prior to his engagement, and at the time of his marriage to my mother, was, and had been some time, Police Magistrate of Hobart Town, which appointment he had received in recognition of "his peculiar qualifications for dealing with criminals and the services he had rendered society on the Huon by recapturing bushrangers who infested his neighbourhood." The fact of what was correctly termed his "extraordinary sagacity and aptitude in these matters, as well as his immense courage," are too well known to hundreds in Tasmania to need recapitulation now. When he left the Hobart Town bench to take up the position of commandant at Norfolk Island a large public meeting was held in Hobart Town, and a memorial was adopted praying him to retain his office, guaranteeing a salary raised by public subscription equal to the stipend of his new appointment, together with free house-rent. On his declining these overtures the public presented him with a service of plate valued at £300.
C. His alleged cruelties at Norfolk Island. — The fact remains (I quote from official sources) that during his command only two men were hanged, and the punishments by flogging and otherwise "were reduced by some hundreds per cent, lower than during the reign of his predecessor." Considering that at the time he assumed charge the island was termed the "Ocean Hell," and that no less than 2000 convicts of the most desperate class were there, it speaks volumes in his favour, that with such a diminution of punishment, capital, corporal, and otherwise, he was able to effect the reforms he was noted for having effected ; and it stands as unrebuttable evidence of the falsehoods penned by Garrett and published by yourself. The whole of the other methods of torture as narrated by the same author are absolute falsehoods. The story of his shooting a man comes under this category, and though I am conversant with the reasons why two empty pistols were on one occasion carried by my father it is unnecessary to give them. I am not writing as an exponent of his practical lessons taught to his officers, but as a defender of my dead father's name.
D. A highly sensational picture is drawn in chap. V. of an escape in a boat: but let me add one more incident to a "boat escape" which has been omitted by Garrett. The shepherd was killed ("stuck") after the manner of a sheep, disembowelled, and a leg of mutton placed inside of him, while his body was decorated (?) with the fanciful cuts butchers put on sheep's carcasses. Never shall I forget my sensation when as a lad I visited the scene of this atrocious brutality which was perpetrated merely because the shepherd attempted to defend his flock from the runaways. These are the gentle creatures whose sufferings the tender-hearted Garrett enlarges on at the expense of my father's name.
So much for Norfolk Island, excepting my father s departure from it and the despatch of the first batch of convicts who left the island prior to the breaking up of the establishment. According to your correspondent my father was dismissed from the island on account of his malpractices having been brought to light through the instrumentality of the clergy. This is an absolute falsehood, He left the island on account of his health, and obtained leave of absence after a continued residence of seven years. As regards the statements with reference to the embarkation of the convicts and their voyage to Hobart Town, they are also absolute falsehoods.
The facts are: 300 men were embarked in the Sir Robert Seppings. Of these 75 were "separate treatment" men — i.e., men who were kept apart from their fellow beings on account of their violent attempts to commit unnatural offences. The surgeon superintendent of the ship had the fullest information of the characters of these men and was advised how to bunk and mess them. This advice was disregarded, and the result was the commission of the most horrible vices, insubordination running so high that the guards were called out and nearly fired on the men. When the ship arrived in Hobart Town public meetings were held, the Legislative Assembly took the matter up, an investigation took place, and appeals from all parts of the colony were sent in against the introduction of such men. (See report Select Committee, Legislative Assembly.) This is rather a different story from the one given by Garrett.
I now turn to the appointment of my father to the Inspector-generalship of the Penal department in this colony. As is usual in Garrett's narrative, the whole account of this is untrue. My father did not succeed to the appointment on the death of Mr Barrow, but some six months previous to it. I saw Mr Barrow's dead body when I had been some three months at Pentridge, and I did not leave Hobart Town to join my father until he had been in Victoria some three months. The account given by Garrett of the manner of Mr Barrow's death is a good specimen of the truthfulness of his narrative. He was not going to the Great Britain, but to the Golden Age. (This is a trifling detail, but the other particulars given are equally false.) He was not alone with a waterman, but in company with many friends; the boat was accidentally upset in a squall, Mr Barrow and one of the boatmen meeting their death. Mr Barrow died from apoplexy, turning over on his face as the boat threw him out, and his body remained floating on the water, face downwards, until it was picked up. These facts I have collected from the Very Rev. Dean O'Hea (now living at Pentridge), who was in the boat at the time of the accident.
The whole of the statements regarding the alleged brutalities of my father at Pentridge are also absolute falsehoods, as will be shows by extracts I shall give further on, The same remark applies to the same allegations in reference to the hulks, which he (as places of imprisonment) condemned as soon as he took charge, and did everything in his power to get them given up. On my father assuming charge he commenced at once a system of education amongst the men, obtaining for them, with considerable difficulty, slates and books with which to while away portion of their sentences of solitary on the hulks. With these sentences he had no concern; the law passed them, and he was there merely to see that they were carried out. Those who worked on shore were taught stone-cutting and masonry instead of mere navvy work, as was the case before his taking office.
At the stockades trades of all sorts were taught, and men I have met, free and in easy circumstances, have admitted to me that it was owing to my father's training and teaching that they were in the position they then occupied. A man who had no money coming to him on discharge never went away empty handed, for my father from his private purse gave him money enough to keep him from want till he could look round for work at the place he took his ticket-of-leave out for. The sick had delicacies prepared from his private store, and I have seen him feeding them with them. But my testimony is not alone, for these facts appear in the official record of the inquiry into the management of the department by him, and are borne evidence to by some, who at least had a violent animus against him.
The story of my father being present at the alleged amputating of the legs of would-be runaway convicts may be met by the statement that he was not even in Victoria at the time the "rush" alluded to took place. The "burnings with chemicals and searings with hot irons" referred to are all of a piece with the other falsehoods with which Garrett's narrative bristles. As regards his murder and the account of it I have nothing to say except that the causes alleged as leading to it are false — i.e, starvation and brutality. The real causes were the action taken by a certain section of the Press, and the fact that the writings that appeared in that section of the Press led the convicts to believe that the sympathy of the public was with them, and that my father's murder would be looked upon as a righteous act. Subsequent proceedings convinced his murderers of their error. I will close my remarks on the strictures of Garret with some statements of fact which cannot be questioned. The following address signed by 10 ex-convicts was presented to my mother: —
"Madam, — We, the undersigned, prisoners in the Pentridge Stockade, beg respectfully to request your acceptance of this letter as an offer of our sincere condolence for and sympathy with you and your family in your present deep distress. We have heard with much indignation that public rumour attributes to us the cognizance of the intended attack upon the late inspector general. This we beg in the most emphatic manner to deny, and to state that we had not the most remote knowledge of the dreadful event; and also to add that had we been on the spot we should have made every exertion to save his life. We are aware of many instances in which you have personally shown kind offices to the sick by providing them with comforts not otherwise attainable. We beg once more to offer you our united and sincere condolence.
(Signatures of 10 convicts.) " 9th April 1857."
The officers and men connected with the penal establishment subscribed £270 and erected a monument to my father's memory. A public funeral was accorded to him, an immense crowd witnessing it. "The greatest order, decorum, and silence characterised this crowd. The principal shops were closed, and the peculiar solemnity of the occasion appeared to be universally felt." — Vide daily press of the time. And lastly, the finding of the Parliamentary Committee, composed of men who were in some instances inimical to him. Their finding runs: — "Grave and serious charges have been brought against the late Mr Price of frequent cruelty to the prisoners placed under his control, but your committee have not found these charges to be in any one instance substantiated. Your committee find that Mr Price had been for several years before his death urging upon the Government the introduction into the penal departments of those very reforms which your committee are now convinced are imperatively required. With the means at his disposal, however, Mr Price accomplished a very great deal towards a radical reform of the entire department. He laid the foundation of an improved system, and very few men in his situation could have achieved more. You committee cannot refrain, while referring to the late inspector-general, from expressing their deep regret at the loss to this country of an officer, whose practical ability and immense experience would have qualified him beyond almost any other person in existence for the control of a thoroughly organised system of criminal management in the colony."
With such a verdict in his favor it would be idle for me to write another word in defence of his name and reputation. There is, however, another one of my family who has been vilified in an outrageous manner, the vilification being made more atrocious by the publication of a contradiction to a foul accusation that was never made. I refer to the statement of Garrett that he was aware that Mr Marcus Clarke had done my mother a gross wrong when he coupled her name with the Rev. Mr Rogers, whom he represented under a pseudonym in "His Natural Life." Mr Marcus Clarke being dead cannot now speak for himself, but when I visited this colony at the time he published his book he denied any intention of representing my father in the character of Maurice Frere, or my mother as Mrs Frere, and the application of a libel of this cruel, lying, atrocious nature to a person who is still alive, even though coupled with the denial which Mr Garrett is good enough to give, seems to me a wanton disregard of all decencies of journalism.
— I am, &c, Tom Price, Lieutenant-colonel, late 103rd Fusiliers. Melbourne, 21st August, 1886. -Otago Witness, 15/10/1886.
No comments:
Post a Comment