Herald (28)
The Herald continued with its reports of the KellyGang and Glenrowan.
NED KELLYS TRIAL
[BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH]
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)
BEECHWORTH This Day
There appears to be some doubt as to whether or not Ned Kelly will be tried in open court or in gaol.
A large number of representatives are present, and the Electric Telegraph department has made preparations for a rush of newspaper messages.
From the Ovens and Murray Advertiser of Tuesday we extract the following items from an account of Ned Kelly’s arrival in Beechworth, his sayings and doings on the way thither etc:-
During the whole of the journey Kelly kept up an incessant indulgence in braggadocio, and many of his statements prove what little regard he has for the truth, and that he is a great braggart. The following are a few instances of the nature of his conversation with his guards:— He asserted that he could have shot every policeman in the district had he so wished, as from time to time he had each of them covered with his rifle; and also that he could have shot, Superintendent Nicolson and the whole of the Queensland black-trackers one day, when near McVean’s homestead, near Greta, but refrained from doing so, and hid behind a log.He had, he further stated, gone to the police paddocks at Wangaratta and Benalla at night time on several occasions, and tried a number of the horses there, but found them to be nothing but a lot of scrubbers, and therefore not worth taking.
Although having no idea of note or tune—as he admitted, remarking that all the members of his family except himself were musical—Kelly sang two or three bush songs, extolling the deeds of the Kelly gang, and also one of “Power’s (the bushranger) poems.” He also said that he had a choice one—which he considered to be the “best of the lot”—but as it alluded to Constable McIntyre, who was then present, and might hurt his feelings, he would refrain from rendering it. When asked how it was that he had permitted Constable Bracken to escape as he did from Jones’s publichouse at Glenrowan, without shooting him previously, Kelly answered, “There was something about Bracken’s look and manner that I liked; and though I seriously thought of it several times that night, I could not bring my mind to shoot him.Bracken and McIntyre were brave men, but Fitzpatrick—he was a b—— thing.”When the train passed Donnybrook he put his head out of his moving prison, and exclaimed, “That’s the place where I was born.” After proceeding along some distance, and when near Glenrowan, he became excited, and offered to fight any member of the police single-handed, selecting Sergeant Steele (whom he advised to go to India, for safety) as the butt of his contemptuous and altogether uncomplimentary remarks—even going so far as to throw his coat into Steele’s face; and boasted that his (Kelly’s) body was unpenetrable, as his ribs were one mass of bone.
He pointed out different objects and places on the whole of the way up, entering into the most minute details; and when approaching the spot where the rails had been torn up by the gang near Glenrowan, on being asked if he knew the place, laughed loudly and said, “I should b—— well think I do.” He said he could easily have got away from the police when he and the other members of the gang were bailed up in Jones’s hotel, at Glenrowan, if he liked, but promised his companions to wait until daylight, when he intended to effectually break the police “ring,” and was confident of his ability to do so.
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