The Jerilderie Letter (5 page)
to a policeman who for a lazy loafing cowardly bilit left the ash corner deserted the shamrock, the emblem of true wit and beauty to serve under a flag and nation that has destroyed massacred and murdered their forefathers by the greatest of torture as rolling them down hill in spiked barrels pulling their toe and finger nails and on the wheel. and every torture imaginable more was transported to Van Dieman’s Land to pine their young lives away in starvation and misery among tyrants worse than the promised hell itself all of true blood bone and beauty, that was not murdered on their own soil, or had fled to America or other countries to
bloom again another day, were doomed to Port McQuarie, Toweringabbie Norfolk Island and Emu plains And in those places of tyrany and condemnation many a blooming Irishman rather than subdue to the Saxon yoke, Were flogged to death and bravely died in servile chains but true to the shamrock and a credit to Paddys land What would people say if I became a policeman and took an oath to arrest my brothers and sisters & relations and convict them by fair or foul means after the conviction of my mother and the persecutions and insults offered to myself and people Would they say I was a decent gentleman, and yet a policeman is still in
worse and guilty of meaner actions than that The Queen must surely be proud of such herioc men as the Police and Irish soldiers as It takes eight or eleven of the biggest mud crushers in Melbourne to take one poor little half starved larrakin to a watch house. I have seen as many as eleven, big & ugly enough to lift Mount Macedon out of a crab hole more like the species of a baboon or Guerilla than a man actually come into a court house and swear they could not arrest one eight stone larrakin and them armed with battens and neddies without some civilians assistance and some of them going to the hospital from the affects of hits from the fists of the larrakin
and the Magistrate would send the poor little Larrakin into a dungeon for being a better man than such a parcel of armed curs. What would England do if America declared war and hoisted a green flag as it is all Irishmen that has got command of her armies forts and batteries even her very life guards and beef tasters are Irish would they not slew around and fight her with their own arms for the sake of the colour they dare not wear for years. and to reinstate it and rise old Erins isle once more, from the pressure and tyrannism of the English yoke. which has kept it in poverty and starvation. and caused them to wear the enemys coat. What else can
England expect. Is there not big fat-necked Unicorns enough paid, to torment and drive me to do thing which I dont wish to do, without the public assisting them I have never interfered with any person unless they deserved it, and yet there are civilians who take firearms against me, for what reason I do not know, unless they want me to turn on them and exterminate them without medicine. I shall be compelled to make an example of some of them if they cannot find no other employment
If I had robbed and plundered ravished and murdered everything I met young and old, rich and poor. the public could not
do any more than take firearms and assisting the police as they have done, but by the light that shines pegged on an ant-bed with their bellies opened their fat taken out rendered and poured down their throat boiling hot will be cool to what pleasure I will give some of them and any person aiding or harbouring or assisting the Police in any way whatever or employing any person whom they know to be a detective or cad or those who would be so deprived as to take blood money will be outlawed and declared unfit to be allowed human buriel their property either consumed or confiscated and them theirs and all belonging to them exterminated off
the face of the earth, the enemy I cannot catch myself I shall give a payable reward for, I would like to know who put that article that reminds me of a poodle dog half clipped in the lion fashion. called Brooke.E. Smith Superintendent of Police he knows as much about commanding Police as Captain Standish does about mustering mosquitoes and boiling them down for their fat on the back blocks of the Lachlan for he has a head like a turnip a stiff neck as big as his shoulders narrow hipped and pointed towards the feet like a vine stake And if there is any one to be called a murderer Regarding Kennedy, Scanlan and Lonigan it is that misplaced
poodle he gets as much pay as a dozen good troopers, if there is any good in them, and what does he do for it he cannot look behind him without turning his whole frame it takes three or four police to keep sentry while he sleeps in Wangaratta, for fear of body snatchers do they think he is a superior animal to the men that has to guard him if so why not send the men that gets big pay and reconed superior to the common police after me and you shall soon save the country of high salaries to men that is fit for nothing else but getting better men than himself shot and sending orphan children to the industrial school to make prostitutes and cads of them for the
Detectives and other evil disposed persons Send the high paid and men that received big salaries for years in a gang by themselves after me, As it makes no difference to them but it will give them a chance of showing whether they are worth more pay than a common trooper or not and I think the Public will soon find they are only in the road of good men and obtaining money under false pretences, I do not call McIntyre a coward for I reckon he is as game a man as wears the jacket as he had the presence of mind to know his position, directly as he was spoken to, and only foolishness to disobey, it was cowardice that made Lonigan and the others fight it
is only foolhardiness to disobey an outlaw as any Policeman or other man who do not throw up their arms directly as I call on them knows the consequence which is a speedy dispatch to Kingdom Come, I wish those men who joined the stock protection society to withdraw their money and give it and as much more to the widows and orphans and poor of Greta district wher I spent and will again spend many a happy day fearless free and bold, as it only aids the police to procure false witnesses and go whacks with men to steal horses and lag innocent men it would suit them far better to subscribe a sum and give it to the poor of their district and there is no fear of
anyone stealing their property for no man could steal their horses without the knowledge of the poor if any man was mean enough to steal their property the poor would rise out to a man and find them if they were on the face of the earth it will always pay a rich man to be liberal with the poor and make as little enemies as he can as he shall find if the poor is on his side he shall loose nothing by it. If they depend in the police they shall be drove to destruction. As they cannot and will not protect them if duffing and bushranging were abolished the police would have to cadge for their living I speak from experience as I have sold horses and cattle innumerable and yet eight head of the culls
is all ever was found I never was interefered with whilst I kept up this successful trade.
I give fair warning to all those who has reason to fear me to sell out and give 10 out of every hundred towards the widow and orphan fund and do not attempt to reside in Victoria, but as short a time as possible after reading this notice, neglect this and abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat in Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales I do not wish to give the order full force without giving timely warning, but I am a widows son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.
There is a wealth of primary sources about the Kelly gang, including regional court records, police department correspondence, Selection Files relating to the various Land Acts, and not least the Kelly Collection held in the Victorian Public Record Office. There are, however, three main primary sources that deal with the raid on Jerilderie. They agree about key events but conflict over details and the characters of the individuals involved.
William Elliott, a schoolteacher, serialised his account in the
Jerilderie Herald
some thirty years after the event. This was reproduced as an appendix in H. C. Lundy’s
Jerilderie: 100 Years
(Jerilderie Shire Council, Jerilderie, 1958). Elliott was preoccupied by criticism that Jerilderie’s inhabitants had been ‘cowardly’ in allowing four ruffians to take over their town. He portrays the male inhabitants behaving bravely and heroically.
Kelly is a figure completely in command—any sign of rage or panic on his part is either not mentioned or explained away as mere ‘bluff’.
The Reverend J. B. Gribble, another eyewitness, wrote ‘A Day with Australian Bushrangers’ for the English periodical
Leisure Hour
in 1885. He relates the depredations carried out in the Australian hinterland for his audience at ‘Home’, and provides a markedly different bias—conditioned by the traditional image of the cut-throat bushranger.
Finally, there are reports, based on interviews with eyewitnesses, that appeared in the Melbourne newspapers in the days following the raid. Although they are sketchy and at times contradictory, these articles provide a clear image of the correspondents’ most immediate and vivid impressions after the hold-up.
I have found Douglas Morrissey’s PhD thesis,
Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves: A Social History of Kelly Country
(held in the Borchardt Library, La Trobe University) to be the most meticulous and exhaustive study of the cultural realm that Kelly occupied.
Other notable secondary sources include: Colin Cave’s
Ned Kelly: Man and Myth
(Cassell, North Melbourne, 1968); Ian Jones’
Ned Kelly: A Short Life
(Lothian Books, Port Melbourne, 1995); Keith McMenomy’s
Ned Kelly: The Authentic Illustrated Story
(Currey O’Neil Ross, South Yarra, 1984); John McQuilton’s
The Kelly Outbreak 1878-1880: The Geographical Dimension of Social Banditry
(Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1979); and Charles Osborne’s
Ned Kelly
(Anthony Blond, London, 1970).
1
Ned does not mention that Gould’s ‘boy’ at this time was Jim Kelly, his own younger brother.
2
Ned’s innocence or guilt in this incident is difficult to establish. The McCormacks were recent arrivals in the area and Gould had fiercely contested their presence in his ‘patch’.
3
This incident led to the bare-knuckled bout between Wright and Ned, after his release from gaol two and a half years later.
4
Ned started his sentence in Beechworth Gaol, where he had spent six months after the Gould incident. In February 1873 he was transferred to Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne, then to the prison hulk
Sacramento
, and finally to the
Battery,
at Williamstown. The prisoners worked in chain gangs, in quarries or constructing roads.
5
Judge Redmond Barry, when sentencing Ned to death, reprimanded, ‘You have actually had the hardihood to confess to having stolen two hundred horses.’ Ned immediately replied, ‘Who proves this?’ This distinction between bragging about a crime and being caught committing it was for him entirely meaningful.
6
Ned’s sister Annie Gunn died with her new born daughter in 1872. Her husband had been in prison—Ernest Flood was thought to be the child’s father. Six years later at Stringybark Creek, Ned told Thomas McIntyre, ‘At first I thought you were a bugger called Flood…if you had been, I wouldn’t have shot you, I’d have roasted you on that fire.’
7
In January 1878 Premier of Victoria Graham Berry had sacked over two hundred public servants, including magistrates and judges, and had made further ominous noises about paring back the police force in similar fashion.
8
Captain Standish, Chief Commissioner of Police, provided a curious parallel to this reasoning in his evidence to the Royal Commission in 1881. ‘There is not the slightest doubt,’ he claimed, ‘that there was an enormous number of tradesmen in the district who were so benefited by the large increase of the police, and by the consequent expenditure, that they were only too glad that this unpleasant business was protracted for so many months.’ So, depending which side of the law you were standing on, either the police or the locals were benefiting from the outlawry of the Kelly gang.
9
Having failed to arrest Dan for horse stealing, Fitzpatrick claimed that Ned had shot him in the wrist. The doctor who attended to him admitted this was possible, but remained doubtful that the wound had been caused by a bullet. He noted Fitzpatrick reeked of brandy.
10
Ellen Kelly, in an interview in 1911, gave her version of the Fitzpatrick affair: ‘He came over to our place…and said he was going to arrest Dan. He started the trouble. He had no business there at all they tell me—no warrant or anything. If he had he should have done his business and gone. He tried to kiss my daughter Kate. She was a fine, good looking girl, Kate; and the boys tried to stop him. He was a fool. They were only trying to protect their sister. He was drunk and they were sober…Why did he want to interfere with my girl? He stayed there to make trouble; and there was trouble.’
11
Ned’s sister Maggie was married to Bill Skillion.
12
In September 1877 Ned interrupted his stay on the King River for a brief, riotous visit to Benalla—he was arrested for drunkenness and put in the cells overnight. The next morning Sergeant Whelan and Constables Lonigan, Fitzpatrick and O’Day were told to escort him across the street to the courthouse. Whether through petty vindictiveness or actual fear, Fitzpatrick tried to handcuff Ned for the journey. Ned shoved him violently to one side and ran into a nearby bootmaker’s shop. In the aftermath of the ensuing brawl, he is reported to have said, ‘Well, Lonigan, I never shot a man yet. But if ever I do, so help me God, you’ll be the first.’
13
Ned consistently attempts to shield associates from any judicial scrutiny. McIntyre asserted that all four men bailed up the police camp, not just the Kelly brothers. This is similar to Ned’s statement that only he and George King had anything to do with the Baumgarten case.
14
Sergeant Kennedy’s body was found in thick scrub some days after the shootings. The loss of his ear had been blamed on the Kelly gang but was more likely caused by animals.
