A STRANGE STORY.

Evening Star, Issue 3803, 3 May 1875, Page 3

A STRANGE STORY.

At the City Police Court, Melbourne, very lately, a man named Williams was brought up, on remand, charged with the theft of a retorting tank lid ; and as no owner could be found was again remanded, to give the police an opportunity of tracing the owner. On the same day his wife appeared in his absei ci to answer a charge of not having complied w'th the compu'sory clauses of the Education Act. The woman was clean, well ordered to all appearances, and said she was poverty stricken ; the man, as he been seen in the rock on his first appearance, was a drunken, dissipated sot Williams, in the year 1855, was employed by the late Mr Balle. stedt as a miner, at a wage of LI per day, in thc',iirst claim that gentle man held on the Victoria Reef—the claim which was the -foundation of his fortune. There vara two other men aim in his employ named Roberts and Frost, on the same terms. Through sonic means never clearly expl;dne.l the three Roberts, Frost, and ‘Villi,-jmo—become possessed of the knowledge that Mr Ballersledfc, instead of holding twelve miner.-;' rights, the number of 12ft cairns he had taken held positively only t' c. Thereupon they jumped 24ft of the n 'i' ! h ■nd of his claum The ease was heard in the Lew courts, and verdicts given against Mr B ulerstedt. From that piece of ground in jess than twelve months the usurpers netted, it is generally believed, over Lot), 1)00 : but as. after their first crushing, :hey erected a small machine of their own, and kept their doings quiet, little was ready known of ihc extent of their rains. With '■■ lie peculiar madness of the time, the pa»tmus rushed into the wildest dissipation •he first thing done was to get wives, and they all married women who, if not in good positions monetarily, were in decent positions. At each wedding there were congregations of persons of every sort and description, and the hillside was ablaze wi hj bonfires, and the valley of the happy family ran with rum and brandy. Time passe 1 ou, and Roberts got mto another g Iden claim lower down the reef, out of which he came with L20,00i) at least to bis credit. His story may be soon told. He took bis wife to Melbourne, bought some property there, and killed her by his conduct in six months. Bit by hit his possessions went from him, and three years ago he was engaged as a shocb’ack in Bourke street. Frost took his money home to Ireland, where he bought a farm, but did not settle on it for long, bis care-r ending 'in a workhouse, where he.is believed to have died unknown and uncared for. The third party in the act of dishonesty which mar he believed robbed Mr Bailerstedt of nearly LSO.OOO, as we have said, appeared at the City Pdice ’> ourt yesterday, a broken, hardened man. There was s mething piteous in the wife’s appeal to the Bench “ 1 had a bright time for the first year of my married life ; but it faded quickly, and my husband is a confirmed, hopeless druikrrd.