The Argus at KellyGang 20/9/1913
POLICE VETERAN'S STORY
NOTABLE VICTORIAN CRIMES. FASCINATING REMINISCENCES
Mr John Sadleir's qualifications for writing "Recollections of a Victorian Police Officer" ( Melbourne : George Robertson and Co) are undoubted. He joined the Victorian cadets (the only material the Government found available at the time to provide officers for a police force) in 1852; he rose to be inspecting Superintendent of police; he was concerned in the capture of some of the most desperate and notorious criminals known to Victorian history; and he continued in the police force until 1896. His book therefore may be accepted as authentic history. In addition to these qualifications, Mr Sadleir writes in a simple, direct, convincing style, without straining after effect. The events with which he deals are in themselves sufficiently sensational, and, to use a journalistic expression, he "lets the story tell itself." He has written in regard to many episodes what no other man could write, and, in producing this book in the evening of life, he has made a very valuable contribution to Victorian history.
The campaign of the police against the Kelly gang, in the late seventies, forms the main feature of Mr Sadleir's volume. When the Kellys murdered Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan and Scanlon in the Wombat Forest , in 1878, Mr Sadleir was in charge of the Benalla police district. From that time until the capture at Glenrowan he was engaged, off and on, in hunting the desperadoes. The various crimes committed by the gang are described. With the broad outlines of these stories most people are familiar, but Mr Sadleir adds to common knowledge incidental scraps of history, which vest the stories with a new interest. The author was at Benalla when the police train from Melbourne passed through for Wangaratta, in the vicinity of which the Kellys had lately been seen. Early in the morning he received a telegram, stating that the bushrangers were shut in at Mrs Jones's hotel at Glenrowan, that Superintendent Hare had been wounded, and nine police had been shot by them. "Serious as this piece of news was," Mr Sadleir says, "my first impulse was to kneel down beside my bed and thank God that He had given the enemy into our hands. It was not that I thought less of the loss of these police, but rather that I thought more of the prospect at any cost of ending the horrid uncertainty that had oppressed us all so long." Hare having retired wounded, Mr Sadleir took command of the operations at Glenrowan. The hotel was thoroughly invested, and a regular engagement took place in the small hours of a bitterly cold midwinter morning. "The dawn was breaking," writes Mr Sadleir, "when there appeared outside the cordon of police a strange-looking figure—a man dressed in a poncho-shaped cloak, which covered his body almost to the ground. His headgear was like a nail-can resting on his shoulders. Men's nerves were excited, as was natural after the events of the previous hours, and when the police saw this mysterious object coming towards them out of the forest in the imperfect light with slow, measured gait, striking his breast with his pistol, the blows bringing out strange metallic sounds, it is no wonder that those nearest him were startled. Some regarded him as a lunatic intruding on the scene, some as a devil. It was only when this strange being began shooting at them that they turned their weapons against him. But the result was only to make matters more inexplicable. They heard their bullets strike without effect. One Martini bullet striking his headgear, checked him for an instant only, and he still came on, cursing and threatening as the constables backed away, still pouring in a hot fire at close range. It was at this stage that Sergeant Steele, who happened to be posted near, came on the scene. Seeing that the shots aimed at the body of the stranger seemed to have no effect, Steele aimed at his legs, when the man fell—not prostrate, but straight down, as one sinking under a heavy weight. Then Steele, followed by other police, threw himself upon the mysterious stranger. It was Ned Kelly, the leader of the gang, dressed in bullet-proof armour from head to knees."
Shortly before this Joe Byrne had been shot dead in the hotel. He went to the bar for a drink, and, finding that the weight of his armour prevented him from throwing back his head to swallow, he lifted a portion of it. As he raised the glass to his mouth a bullet struck him in the groin, and he fell dead. The armour worn by Ned Kelly was found to consist of the mould-boards of ploughs. It was covered with bullet marks, showing how accurate had been the shooting of the police. Mr Sadleir defends certain of the police officers, against the findings of what was called the Longmore Police Commission, and relates how, upon his representations, "The Argus" made inquiries, and, finding ample evidence upon which the justice of the commission's proccedings might be fairly questioned, published a series of critical articles. Other newspapers followed suit, "with the result that the report of the commission became a discredited thing, that no one gave heed to."
Mr Sadleir says:—"The whole cost of this evil business, in life and treasure, might have been avoided by a better administration of police affairs in the North-Eastern district . . . There is this to be said in extenuation—the shadow of Black Wednesday was still over the service. No officer felt secure in his position under the Berry regime. Indeed, Mr Berry made no secret of his view that the police service could be carried on altogether without officers, whose names were never mentioned in the courts as having arrested anyone. All things considered, the man at the head of a department so threatened needed to be a very strong man, and one possessed of a true sense of duty, to enter upon any far-sighted policy. Captain Standish, the chief commissioner of police, was not such an one."
The history of that audacious bushranger Power is recounted by Mr Sadleir, and details are given of many other early crimes. These latter include the attempted robbery of the English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered Bank, in Fitzroy, in 1864, in broad daylight. The feature of this event was the bravery of John Dowling, the manager, and Mr P de Jersey Grut in dealing with the armed intruders. Woods and Carver, the principal criminals, were hanged, and the two others were sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. Woods sang a comic song on the scaffold. A more placid feature of the book is found in Mr Sadleir's recollections of early residents. With Robert O'Hara Burke he was personally friendly. "In spite of the disregard he commonly showed of the ways of fashionable life, Burke was a well-bred gentleman," says Mr Sadleir. He relates how, when a burlesque opera company visited Beechworth in 1858, Burke attended every performance, and fell in love with the prima donna, Miss Julia Mathews.
"He made love to her mother for her daughter's sake, and followed the company from one town to another, pressing his suit without success."
Mr Sadleir's is a book one would like to linger over, so full is it of pleasant minor stories that help to make character in our history. There are romantic episodes relating to the early history of country towns, and a great deal of out-of-the-way information respecting administration and social life has been happily rescued from obscurity. The book is copiously illustrated.
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