Royal Commission report day 50 page 24

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Story of the KellyGang - the Royal Commission Report

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The Royal Commission evidence for 7/9/1881

(full text transcription)

(see also introduction to day 50)

[[../../people/peN_P/nicolsonPAC.html|Ass Com Charles Hope Nicolson]] giving evidence

17067 Do you not remember me telling you the circumstances that made me discover his relationship with one of the sympathizers?— I know all about his connections. I heard of that in the first visit up there. I have no doubt of it at all.

17068 Do you remember, when you were Acting Chief Commissioner, my coming to you and telling you I wanted to take Jack Sherritt to my district?— I remember your coming. I think I was out.

17069 And that I had a very strict sub-officer I wanted to put him under?— Yes, I think that was it.

17070 You then told me you were going to dismiss them?— Yes; to get his discharge.

17071 You heard Mr. Sadleir say that he asked Captain Standish not to send him to him, that he did not want a man of that sort?— Yes.

17072 And I offered to relieve you and take the man into my own district?— I do not remember the two things being connected in that way.

17073 Will you tell me why you recommended this man to Mr. Fosbery, having got rid of him out of your own force?— Mr. Fosbery was in my own office that very forenoon, and came in just as they were going out, and I told the whole story about him and asked him for his opinion, if he thought I had acted right in the matter, and I said I was very sorry for them under the circumstances, and I really was. I thought it was a very cruel and painful ordeal they had gone through, end asked if he would take them, and if in some distant part of his country he could employ them, particularly the younger. He just laughed and said he could not do anything of the kind.

17074 You got rid of them out of your force and you asked the Chief Commissioner of New South Wales to take them into his?— Yes; but he knew all about them.

17075 You subsequently gave an introduction to Sherritt to Queensland ?— Yes, I asked if they could take him into their force.

17076 Having got rid of him from our force?— I told him all the circumstances, and Mr. Seymour replied to me fully, saying that under the circumstances he could not do it.

17077 With reference to the telegram you sent when you went away to town that night, did you on that day at all tell me that you had, stopped supplies to the Sherritts?— Yes, I explained to you this much, I told you that the Chief Commissioner in Melbourne had decided that he knew better whom to employ, and whom not to employ, as scouts in this district than I did, and that he had sent orders against the employment of Aaron Sherritt, and that notwithstanding I had kept Aaron on at my own cost—was paying him at my own cost-and that now you were relieving me you would have to see to it.

17078 Did you tell me you had written to or directed Ward or Mullane to stop supplies?— I did not, because I did not write till after.

17079 Then all supplies were stopped without my knowing anything about that?— There were no supplies.

17080 Did you not stop supplies for all the agents?— You are exaggerating the thing. The payment only consisted of Aaron Sherritt 's payment; the rest of the family, as I understood, received a little tea and sugar.

17081 All that was stopped?— Yes.

17082 Did you tell me that when you left?— I do not believe I did say anything about tee and sugar.

17083 What was the urgency of sending a telegram that night when you got on to the station?— I was a little nervous when I was going away, and I thought I had forgotten about those men in that hut and I rushed to the telegraph table and telegraphed.

17084 Then you had the men in that hut?— No, I had ordered the men away before that, but I had forgotten the fact.

17085 Did you tell me when you left you had ordered them away?— No, the necessity for their being there had ceased. I, who placed them there, thought so.

17086 Did you know they were in the hut?— I had sent word the day before about them, but I forgot it at that moment, and therefore I made sure by telegraphing.

17087 Why did not you send a copy to me?— I never thought of it, and as I say I never thought of the thing at all till the train was just starting.

17088 Had you ever been down there to Sherritt’s hut before the morning you went there with the Commission?— I had seen the hut in the distance.

17089 Had you ever been there?— I had never been to the hut.

17090 Had you been down the road past Sherritt's hut?— I had, and in sight of Mrs. Byrne's.

17091 When?— On one occasion when I was up at Beechworth.

17092 The Sebastopol charge occasion?— No, one other occasion.

17093 Then these three men were in the hut and you knew nothing at all about it?— Not at the time I was there.....

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