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The Royal Commission evidence for 8/6/1881

(see also introduction to day 27)

[[../../people/peA/allenMPress.html|George Vesey Allen]] sworn and examined .

10704 By the Commission— What are you?— Reporter on the staff of the Daily Telegraph.

10705 Have you heard the evidence given by Mrs. Reardon?— Yes.

10706 Can you give any information relative to that?— In the main, it is perfectly correct. I saw her leave the house screaming. some time after the first fire, and approach the gate preceded by a number of people. I heard them challenged. I heard her challenged, and reply that she was a woman with children. The man who challenged her somewhere near the gate said, “ Come here and show yourself. There was a cross fire from, I think, the trench or gutter that ran down from the station.

10707 Where the black trackers were?— Where I understood they were. That cross fire in the direction of the corner of the hotel from their position disturbed her, and she ran screaming back to the hotel. I could not see her distinctly. Some one said it was Dan Kelly in disguise—some one down near the trenches.

10708 You could not say whether they fired at her?— No; the shots were fired in the direction the corner of the hotel near where she was—they were across near her. I saw her come out of the back the hotel again later on, and saw her fired at. I heard some one (who I afterwards learned was Constable Arthur) call out that she was a woman.

10709 Have you any doubt now, from what you saw and hear, that it was Constable Arthur?— No doubt at all.

10710 What did he say?— I could not say exactly what his words were, but I heard “woman” and about not to fire— “do not fire at her.”

10711 Was this addressed to some one in the act of firing?— Some one closer in, up by the stable, and who had just fired at her.

10712 Did he fire again?— No, not at her. She came down closer, in the direction of the station, and Guard Dowsett ran from the trench or drain through the fence, and dragged her through the fence, and brought her to the station. She was screaming and making a great noise all the time, from the time she left the hotel till Dowsett took her.

10713 Just give us a short account of what you saw?— I left Melbourne in the special train with the black trackers, and picked up Mr. Hare and his men at Benalla, when two engines were placed on to the train, and we proceeded through. Prior to arriving at Glenrowan the train was pulled up by a signal from the pilot engine, and on the guard or driver (one of the men) coming back, we were informed that the rails had been pulled up, and that the Kelly gang was waiting for us. Mr. Hare and some of his men, and Mr. O'Connor, I think, held a consultation, and they proceeded slowly up to the Glenrowan station, where they all immediately got out of the carriages, and, at an order from Mr. Hare, proceeded to land and saddle the horses. The men were very actively at work when a man rushed on to the platform, calling out, “They are here; they are here”; and he went up to Superintendent Hare, and in so many words told him that the gang was at Jones's hotel, and that there were a lot of people there. Afterwards I found that was Constable Bracken.

10714 Did he tell Mr. Hare at the time that there were a large number of prisoners?— Yes; he was very excited, and jumped about the platform a good deal. Having satisfied Mr, Hare as to the position of the gang, Mr. Hare called to his men, saying, “Come on, boys”. They left the horses, picked up their arms, and scampered away in a body together—very bravely, I thought. Mr. O'Connor was in the van, and surrounded by his black trackers. I read or heard that one of the reporters stated that he was some seventy or eighty yards behind.

10715 You had better give your own evidence of what you know?— I think it was yesterday the evidence was given.

10716 Give what you know yourself—did you see him amongst the number of the foremost men?— Yes, surrounded by his black trackers. He went away amongst them. They all went away together. I think there was only one who left anything like ten yards behind, and he was a man who had mislaid his gun.

10717 Was he a white or black man?— A white man, and he picked up with his companions— before they had got twenty yards away he went running after them—when the police and black trackers had got about to the drain.

10718 Did you remain on the platform or follow them?— I remained on the platform. Two of the other reporters, Mr. Melvin and Mr. McWhirter, followed them some distance and returned. I stopped on the platform with Mr. Carrington. When they arrived about the drain, I saw some men standing in front of the hotel, on the verandah I thought, and they called out, “Come on you” something to that effect, and immediately opened fire—fired one volley on the police.

10719 Who fired the first shot?— The four men who were standing in front of the hotel.

10720 The police were not the first to fire?— Oh, no. They received a volley while they were in sling trot, running in the direction of the hotel.

10721 Could you, from the platform, see the police in front of the hotel when the first volley was fired?— Yes, indistinctly somewhat, but still you could see the body of men.....

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