The Argus at KellyGang 18/12/1878 (3)
THE POLICE AND THE REWARD MONEY
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS
Sir-I observe that in to day's issue you state, at the request of the assistant commissioner of police, that no member of the police force will be entitled to any part of the reward offered for the apprehension of the Kellys, because in pursuing the gang the police are only performing their duty.
1 think Superintendent Nicolson did well to submit this view to you for public information, and, as I will take leave to presume for public criticism.
If an ordinary domestic servant were asked to work in the stable, or a groom in the garden, public opinion and the police magistrate would both enforce the view that the master who gave such directions exceeded his duty, and might be properly disobeyed.
When the police now in the field after Kelly enrolled in the force it seemed improbable that they would be sent armed with weapons of prediction, the right use of which they discover by native intelligence, and not instruction, to take the very great risk of shooting one another, and to exhibit in country to which the bulk of their number are strangers the skilled observation of experienced bushmen in the endeavour to hunt down outlawed and desperate men.
For these duties an ordinary policeman's ordinary duties afford a poor preparation. It would indeed speak very loudly for the state of our society if the men entrusted with keeping the peace had in doing so acquired any of the experience that is desirable that those hunting down Kelly should have. Yet these men have, as Superintendent Nicolson says eagerly pressed forward to take part in this duty. They have taken no objections to the character of the work imposed on them, or to its novelty. They have cheer- fully done their best to grapple with the new state of facts in which they and we find ourselves, and then they are told that they are only doing their duty, and are not to participate in the reward. This is taking a very high view of their duty - not higher, I am sure than Superintendent Nicolson takes of his own, but higher a great deal than the pubic would wish to take of his or theirs.
It was never expected that these men would in the course of the police constable's duty have to carry their lives in their hands, and stalk armed ruffians through unknown wildernesses; and I am sure that the public would like to feel that those who are so cheerfully doing their duty in such exceptional circumstances should be rewarded if they succeed in their attempt to capture these outlaws.
Let me call attention to the fact that by excluding the police force from this reward you also exclude from it any adventurous young men, whose previous training would fit them better for the work in hand than that of the policeman, who might be disposed to enlist for the purpose of joining in this pursuit; and let me urge that volunteers may be sworn in as members of the police force for three months, or until the bushrangers are taken and whoever earns the rewards offered, whether he be in the police force or out of it, shall receive it. -I am &c.
QUIEN SABE.
Dec. 17.
end
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