The Complete Inner History of the KellyGang and their Pursuers (91)

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CHAPTER XXII

continued

“Supt. Hare’s bill against the Government for surgical attendance amounted to £607, about £480 of which was paid to his relative, Dr. Charles Ryan; while this officer was being petted and coddled on all sides, and a special surgeon dispatched almost daily some thirty miles by train to attend him, the Government questioned the payment of £4/4/- for the treatment of one of the blacktrackers who had received a wound in the head at Glenrowan.”

(Signed):

FRANCIS LONGMORE.

GEORGE WILSON HALL.

GEORGE RANDALL FINCHAM.

WILLIAM ANDERSON.

Hon. JH Graves did not sign the report because he had to give evidence as a witness before the Commission.

Kelly sympathisers were arrested and thrown into gaol for over three months because they looked at the police or watched them. Now, what would have happened to Messrs Longmore, Hall, Fincham and Anderson if they had spoken as above immediately prior to the arrest and Kelly sympathisers? They, too, should have been arrested as sympathisers and thrown into gaol.

It is surprising, therefore, that the Royal Commission did not refer in its report to the illegal arrest of twenty free men as Kelly sympathisers, and the outrage perpetrated by Supt. Hare in keeping these men, unlawfully, in gaol from January 2, 1879, to April 22 of the same year.

It is also very surprising that the Royal Commission did not censure the conduct of Sergeant Steele at Glenrowan. Apparently the attempted murder of Mrs Reardon, her baby and her son by Sergeant Steele were not as serious in the judicial minds of these four politicians as Steele’s neglect to follow the tracks of the Kellys from Wangaratta to Warby Ranges. It is very clear that the anti-Kelly prejudice was so firmly rooted in the minds of the so-called ruling class of that day that while they connived at police rapacity, they mildly censured police cowardice and perjury.

There was evidently one law for the police and another for high-spirited civilians.

Now, if these four Commissioners were so very angry with the heads of the police force—Captain Standish and Supt Hare—merely because Commissioner E J Dixon spoke or wrote on their behalf, what would they not have done had they received but one-half of the provocation or persecution and injustice to which the Kellys had been subjected by the bench and the police?

Even after fifty years the bias of the Government does not seem to have appreciably diminished. Mr David Gaunson was hounded down, in 1880, for speaking on behalf of Ned Kelly, and on 12th April, 1929, the Government, through its departmental heads, brought its brutality to a fitting climax by failing to make provision to prevent the desecration of his grave in a manner that would cause a nation of savages to feel ashamed. In connection with this horror, the author wrote to the Hon the Chief Secretary (Dr Argyle) as follows:—

68 McCracken Street,

Essendon, W. 5,

16th April, 1929.

To the Honorable,

the Chief Secretary,

Melbourne, C. 1.

The Desecration of the Grave of Ned Kelly

Dear Sir,—It was with intense feelings of horror that I read of the hurtish desecration of Ned Kelly’s grave, and I hasten to congratulate you on the commendable action you propose to take to, in some way, counteract the outrage committed on the remains of one whose penitential dispositions before death earned for him the forgiveness of his sins, and the right to receive the last rites of his Church.

It would be well, in this Christian community, for our Governmental heads to recognise Christian principles, and regard Ned Kelly as he now appears before his Creator, and cease condemning him on the refuted testimony of the various Judas Iscariots, whose perjury sold him for so many pieces of silver.

“The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers” has been eagerly bought up, and is now in the second edition, and read by the people of Australia, who are now, for the first time, in a position to form a correct judgment on the virtues and vices of both sides—the Kellys on the one side, and the Judiciary and Police on the other.

Ned Kelly’s heroism in defending his mother’s integrity; his sister’s honour; and his brother’s innocence, has claimed for him a place in the hearts of fair-minded people of Australia.

Would it not, therefore, be a gracious act on your part to hand over the remains of Ned Kelly, when removed from the “head-hunters,” to his only surviving brother, Mr Jim Kelly, of Greta, for interment in consecrated ground?

Yours faithfully,

J J KENNEALLY

[The Chief Secretary, Dr Hon SS Argyle, MLA, replied on 19/4/1929 that he had no power to authorise the adoption of this suggestion.—Ed.]

THE END

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