Royal Commission report day 42 page 24
The Royal Commission evidence for 3/8/1881
(see also introduction to day 42)
Mr John Sherritt Jn giving evidence
15022 You have no other wish than to live an honest, straightforward life?— That is all.
15023 Did Aaron know that you were working for the police?— Yes; we used to work into one another's hands.
15024 Were you on bad terms with your brother after he got married?— No, I was not. I will tell you everything I know. We were on bad terms for a few days. It was about his getting married. He said he was going to be married, and I said, “What is the good? you will have to mix up with your wife's sisters or brothers, and very likely they will be going to the cave and the house, and Byrne's sister and brothers go to school, and it is hard to say what they will do.”
15025 You thought it a bad time to be getting married?— Yes.
15026 You had no objection to his marrying Miss Barry ?— No, not a bit. I was not acquainted with her at all.
15027 You had no objection to her personally?— No.
15028 Is there anything you wish to inform the Commission about, anything you would like to say yourself, any information you have to give, or any complaint to make?— I have got a good deal of complaints to make about information I gave, that it was not acted upon. I will tell you another instance. On one occasion I gave good information about Byrne. I got along with Patsy Byrne this night, and we got drinking together; he was drinking brandy and I was drinking what they call “soft stuff,” so as to watch him. I stopped with him a considerable time, and he went home to his mother's place, and he came back again, and he told me, “Joe has been home and got some clothes, and cleared out; is not he a smart fellow?” It was close on morning then, so as soon as I got Patsy Byrne away, I took an axe with me, and gammoned to go to my work. On the way to work I met two of the cave party—Alexander Armstrong —and I told them about Byrne being home last night, and they seemed like as if they were horror struck at Byrne being home and they watching. It was Alexander senior.
15029 Those men were horror struck at the idea of their not seeing the man when he came there?— Yes.
15030 What happened then?— As soon as I told those two men I went to Beechworth and told Ward .
15031 Where did you see those two men?— I was going to the cave, on the track to the cave, and I met those two men going to the cave; they had been away for water somewhere.
15032 What did Ward do?— I believe he saw my brother about it, and that they informed him it was an impossibility for Byrne to be there and them watching; but it was no impossibility at all. I could go to the house, and five or six men with me, and the men not see me—creeping along the deep rise there was in front of Mrs. Byrne's house. The men used only to watch the front of the place, but a man could get up without their seeing it.
15033 Could they not see a man walking in at the front door?— No. The men when I was watching were only lying at the back of the place. They never put anybody at the front at all to watch.
15034 There is a space between the garden gate and the house—you could see a man walking distinctly?— Yes.
15035 How could a man get in there without being seen?— L could get in without being seen.
15036 How?— They could come along between the house and the garden fence in the rise that is there. Patsy Byrne did not say he was in the house; he might stop and the things be conveyed to him.
15037 Did you ever learn whether they had any “call” that they understood—any signal that they understood in the house?— I did not know that they had any signals in the house.
15038 What did Ward do when you gave him the information next morning?— I believe he rode out to some of the men, or saw my brother or some of the men, and the men said it was impossible the man could have been there and the police not see him, so I expect that five men's word to my one was no good. So the next morning I went to the cave. Whatever consultation the men had between themselves, he said to me, “Did you see Byrne last night?” in a kind of sneering way—in a very insulting way too— as much as to say from what he could understand that I did not get that information at all.
15039 They did not believe he was home?— They did not.
The witness withdrew.
Adjourned to to-morrow, at Eleven o'clock .
[~[[see report of proceedings 3/8/81]|6450]~]
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