Royal Commission report day 12 page 3
The Royal Commission evidence for 13/4/1881
(see also introduction to day 12)
[[../../people/peU_Z/wyattMag.htm|Alfred Wyatt, P.M.]] giving evidence
2279 You mean that the telegraph officers had not informed the police?— If they had been instructed the moment there was a breakage in the lines, particularly the peculiar simultaneous breakage of five wires on both sides of the line, I think the police would have put them on means of ascertaining the modes of the breakage long before they did, because they proceeded merely in the usual way, by sending a telegraph repairer down by the first train, 4.40, in the day.
2280 Do you attach that blame to any special officer?— No, I do not venture to do that. I would scarcely call it “blame.”
2281 Say “oversight”?— Yes; that perhaps is the proper way to speak of it.
2282 From your knowledge of police discipline, would you be kind enough to indicate what special officer was responsible for that?— That is beyond my knowledge; but I will tell you what occurred to me; but your question deals with the matter of the government of the police, which I am not cognizant of.
2283 I understood you to say that the information of the breakage of the wires was withheld from the police hours after it was known by the Telegraph Department?— Not “withheld,” but not given. “Withheld,” means actively, intentionally, but it was not that. I will give the facts connected with that. I have been lately informed that Mr. John Woods, the Commissioner of Railways at that time, when he heard of the breakage of the line tolerably early in the day, exclaimed, “It is the Kellys;” and that was his opinion, I believe. I have been also informed by a telegraph gentleman that they were testing the lines, and applying the usual means to find out where the fault was some hours before. I discovered what the fault was, but up to that time only the usual means had been used which will allow the department to discover instantly, or very speedily, between which stations the stoppage has occurred; but only by the application of particular tests can they find out at what exact distance between any two places. What I think is that if the police had been instructed of it, the moment all the wires had been found down, Mr. Gorman might have sent his own policeman, or some one, to enquire what was the cause of it, or the police themselves might have sent from Benalla, Violet Town , or Euroa.
2284 You are quite sure that several hours were lost?— I am quite sure of that.
2285 Before the information was communicated to the police?— The information was first communmunicated to the police by myself at the hour I have given, and they might have learned the state of the line moderately soon after the breakage.
2286 How do you know. You say of your own knowledge this matter occurred as you have related. By what means did you arrive at that information you have given?— I have told all I can recollect which is to the point.
2287 I know the mode by which you discovered the breakage in the line, but I want to know how you personally became possessed of the knowledge that hours of delay took place before the fact was communicated to the police?— I believe I learned it from Mr. Challen and from Mr. Saxe, the two telegraph gentlemen at Benalla telegraph station in the old town. Mr. Saxe, the permanent telegraph gentlemen there, and Mr. Challen, a skilled gentleman sent up to assist him at the crisis. I believe I learned from them; I am not absolutely certain, but I believe it was from them I learned how soon the evil acting of the wires was discovered.
2288 Are you done with your facts?— I think I have.
2289 It was stated, I think by Mr. Nicolson and Mr. Sadleir, that you were in a very excited state when they saw you at the railway station. That excitement I know was due simply to excitement about the Kelly business, but some people have said was there any other cause for excitement?— You mean might I be under the influence of drink?
2290 The impression of the evidence conveyed that at the time?— I do not know how to answer that.
2291 I put it in that form for your own sake?— I do not know how to put it. Such a construction had never occurred to me. I am not a teetotaller, but I may probably not drink a pint of spirit in the year.
2292 Mr. Sadleir. —I would not have thought of such a thing, as I know Mr. Wyatt to be almost a teetotaller.
2293 The Witness. —When I heard Mr. Sadleir say it, it excited a smile on my part, but what I thought he meant was that I had lost my head a little bit, and I was going to say, “No, I was not excited but I was urgent.” Mr. Nicolson knows I am a man who does not get excited in time of danger; that is my best time.
2294 But at the time you gave the information to the police, after having discovered the break in the wire, how long an interval elapsed between the time of your discovering it and the information you gave to the officers you have spoken of?— The interval that would be occupied by the usual mail train running from Faithfull's Creek station, stopping there its usual time, and arriving at Benalla, I can approximate it. It is twenty-six miles, and taking the running rate on Victorian railways it would be, I should say from one hour to one hour and ten or fifteen minutes.
2295 In your opinion, do you think that if the information you gave then to the officers had been acted on by immediate pursuit, would there have been a probability of speedily arresting them?— As facts have turned out, I do not think any different result would have followed, because I do not think they could have got upon the track before daylight, even if they had gone before......
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