The Argus at KellyGang 8/11/1880
editorial
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1880
We regret, as will all right-thinking colonists, that His Excellency the GOVERNOR had to pass through the painful scene which was enacted at Government house on Saturday morning, and which, it seems, is to be repeated today, in connexion with the condemned man EDWARD KELLY. For these proceedings we have to thank that gentleman whom the Legislative Assembly has lately chosen to honour with its confidence, for without Mr DAVID GAUNSON they would have been impossible. In every community great criminals elicit a curious and morbid sympathy. MORGAN and GILBERT, and the CLARKS and the other members of the original Gardiner gang found a wretched mob in Sydney to throw up caps in their behalf. JACK SHEPPARD, the burglar, and DICK TURPIN, the footpad, are heroes to audiences of the Little Bourke-street type in all climes to this day. What is generally wanting when an agitation on behalf of criminals is a-foot, however, is some public man who will so far debase himself as to take the lead and give the ugly movement shape and form, and this office the Chairman of Committees has kindly consented to perform on the present occasion.
The public has been carefully led to believe that Mr GAUNSON has obtained no fee so far. It is to be presumed that he was willing enough, when he undertook the work, to handle the bank-notes of the culprit - how obtained, it is needless to particularise - but as the money has not been forthcoming, Mr GAUNSON is now securing recompense for work and labour done in the shape of notoriety. It may be a capital advertisement to him in his future practice if it is understood that his functions begin where the task of other solicitors ends. Respectable members of the profession who have to defend a criminal are satisfied when they have obtained for their client a fair trial, but business may be pressed upon the man who lets it be known that he will head a mob agitation afterwards, and who, moreover, has a political position which he can prostitute for the purpose. It is, no doubt, a misfortune that Mr GAUNSON should have a position to abuse.
The Kelly feeling had practically died out, and the wretched murderer might have gone quietly to the grave, and his history might have been speedily forgotten, if the Chairman of Committees had not worked up the demonstrations which have disgraced the city, and the direct effect of which must be to further confuse the Kelly class in their ideas of right and wrong. If other outrages occur a very serious responsibility will lie at the door of the agitator; and as it is, there is a difficulty in pronouncing which is the worst enemy of society, the man who committed the murders or he who excuses them. Vanity and unscrupulousness are said to be the leading characteristics of the criminal who has been condemned by law, and certainly these would seem to be the leading features of the offender whose conduct has now to be pronounced upon by society.
Under ordinary circumstances petitioners for the reprieve of a prisoner are entitled to have every statement weighed, and the members of the Executive in such cases may naturally feel a doubt as to their duty. In the present case, however, hesitation on the part of Ministers would be unseemly.
KELLY'S life had been forfeited by law long before he was captured, for notorious crimes which admit of no justification. He was a thief, and when the police went to apprehend him on a serious charge, he laid in ambush for them and shot them down. The gang he headed afterwards trapped and murdered a man who was giving information to the officers of the law. KELLY was captured in an attempt to decoy a large body of the police to sudden death. He tore up the rails in order to upset a train, and then he, being protected by armour, could with ease have shot any survivors. The bald recital of such crimes - to which others can be added - is sufficient to excite a thrill of horror, and to prove that if KELLY is not hanged capital punishment must be abandoned once and for all. The Executive, however, has no authority to abrogate law in this manner. It can advise.
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