A Double Sell.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 144, 13 August 1872, Page 7

A Double Sell.

The man arrested a few days since, between Carngham and Linton, in Victoria, on suspicion of being Dermody, seems (thy BuHxmt Courier says) to have " taken quite a rise" out of the police and people of Carngham, and to have derived a fund of amusement out of the mistake. The mode of arrest was as follows: —Two or three children were playing in the bush at the rear of Mr Chibnell's house, when they saw this man lying behind a log. They ran and told their father, and the latter immediately took it for granted that the stranger must be one of the escaped prisoners. Mr Chibnell went to the spot, and was convinced by the man's dilapidated appearance, and his youth, that he was Dermody. Mr Chibnell coaxed him down to his house, asking him to take a drink there ; and nothing loth, the stranger followed. Mr Chibnell provided him with a substantial meal and an abundance of beer. In the meantime Mr Chibnell's brother rode off to Carngham to obtain the police. Returning with Constable Menagh, the latter on his arrival questioned the man, and the replies given not being deemed satisfactory, Menagh arrested him on suspicion of being Dermody. He was marched into Carngham, and as he passed towards the camp scores of people appeared in the streets to have a look at the now famous convict. On being placed in the lock-up, a galvanised iron building, he looked about him for a moment, and said to the constable, " This building won't hold a man who has escaped from the Ballarat gaol ; I'll be out of it before morning." So convinced were the police by this remark that they had got the genuine article, that a sentry was placed over the lock-up for the night. Nothing, however, occurred to disturb the constable, the prisoner continuing up to the morning comfortably to snore off the fumes of the beer he had imbibed so freely at Mr Chibnell's house. When daylight came, the police prepared to remove their prisoner into Ballarat, but first provided him with an ample breakfast, which he consumed with evident satisfaction. He was then about to start for his destination, when some of the Smythesdale police arrived, and at once pronounced that the joker was not only not Dermody, but that lie was two inches shorter than the man wanted. Of course, after this there was no keeping him, and he was allowed to depart. This he did, with a broad grin overspreading his face, evidently arising from inward satisfaction that he had been hospitably entertained by Mr Chibnell in the first place, and by the police in the second, under the conviction that he was somebody else than he really wa.s. We believe the Carngham police are rather sore over the "sell"; so also, it is said, is Mr Chibnell.