The Complete Inner History of the KellyGang and their Pursuers (34)

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CHAPTER VIII

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Chivalry of the Police

Of course, Supt Hare and his men were not afraid of an unarmed old woman, and apparently they were sufficiently demoralised to attack her.  The age of chivalry, as far as this police party was concerned, had gone.

Let Superintendent Hare tell what he and his men did.  In giving evidence on oath Superintendent F A Hare said: “The sentry saw the old woman (Mrs Byrne) again, and I called the sergeant, and said, ‘We had better give her a fright.’ The sentry saw her going right over us, up the range, to peer over a rock to look down upon us.  I said to Senior-Constable Mills, who was with me, ‘Go up and give the old woman a fright,’ and he went up in the direction she was going, and hid behind a rock, where he could see her.  She used to go crawling along like a rabbit, and only show her head over the rocks.  At last she passed the rock where the constable was hidden behind, but he was on one side and she on the other.  He followed her, and directly she got about a yard or two he gave a tremendous yell and jumped on her.  The old woman lost her presence of mind, and almost fainted, and said, ‘What? What? I am only looking for cattle,’ and then she soon recovered her assurance and got impertinent, and said, ‘I will get my son to shoot the whole lot of you.’” (RC1284)

(If the old lady had been armed, it is extremely probable that Senior-Constable Mills would not have dared to jump on her.  It was no wonder, therefore, that the police were severely censured for their failure to get in touch with the Kellys, and the success achieved by Supt Hare and his party in avoiding the Kelly Gang was severely commented on by some of the Melbourne papers.)

Continuing his evidence on oath, Supt Hare said: “The duty was arduous and great responsibility was thrown upon the leader.  There was a great deal of work to be done by day and night.  Some of the Melbourne papers used to describe our life as a pleasant picnic.  I never asked the men to do anything that I did not share the work with them myself.” (RC1287)

After describing the strenuousness of the police party’s life, especially in packing up, Superintendent Hare continued on oath: “Once or twice we were very near them (the Kellys), but they managed to escape us in the mountains.  In sending parties out in search of the gang my idea was that we should compel them to be continually on the watch; and I did not like to give them undisputed possession of the country in which they lived by keeping my men out of it.  (This evidence admits a state of war.) The outlaws knew all our movements, although some of their sympathisers were in gaol, and our party could be tracked by themselves or friends for any distance.  Ned Kelly knew all our camps in the Warby Ranges; and when going to Beechworth with one of the constables of my party, he (Ned Kelly) told him of all our movements, and described the men who used to go and look for the horses at daylight.  He said there were two young men who used to go out and get the horses.  Each man had his own work to do in the search party, and directly I called them in the morning the two used to go and catch the horses.  One man was told off to light the fire and boil the billy of tea; the others had to pack up the swags—the hardest work we had.  It took a long time to pack up everything we were carrying.  Ned Kelly described the men and everything we did.”

Supt Hare’s evidence gives the impression that the police parties were as cumbersome as a travelling circus, with all the packing up that had to be done.

Sometimes the police search parties or picnic parties used to put a great deal of energy into the tracking of another police party, and persuade themselves that they were right on the Kellys.

Here is an example given in evidence by Supt Hare:—”I said to the men with me: ‘To-morrow, instead of going down that river (the Ovens), there to where the tracks lead, let us work back to see where they come from.’ They all agreed it was a very good idea (they knew they would be much safer, even on double pay, to see where the tracks came from), because we could tell whether they were the police, the outlaws, or the time they made if we knew where they came from.  Moses (Queensland tracker) picked up the tracks next morning, and went back again and worked them back, and when he got to a certain place, where there were two big stones, he said, ‘Take off saddle here,’ and I said, ‘Where?’ and he said, ‘Here, one fellow saddle here, and one fellow there.’ And we all jumped off our horses, and we found first an empty tin, such as we used to have preserved meat in—it was of the same description as we had—and then I found another one, and found a police strap, a Government strap, and the men came to the conclusion that it was Senior-Constable Kelly’s party, because when I had removed him from the house where he had charge of I told him to go and form a camp in the mountains so that he could watch the house, and we gave them some of our provisions—he had none at the time.  He came from Wangaratta without any provisions; and we recognised that these were the tins we had given him before.  I subsequently made inquiries, and I found this was the very camp, and that he had gone down the tracks towards the Ovens, and had gone up that way to Wangaratta.” (RC1301)

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