NEW SOUTH WALES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1803, 1 December 1879, Page 3

NEW SOUTH WALES.

[PBOM OUB OWH COBBBSPONDBHT.] SYDNEY, November IS.

The ordinary humdrum in which, despite of the Exhibition, the colony has been steeped for a long time, has been broken sinee I last wrote by two striking occurrences, viz., disclosures of painful irregularities in the management of the orphan and destitute children in the Randwiek Asylum, and an outbreak of bushranging. With reference to the first, I think I briefly mentioned in my last letter that at a meeting of the directors of the Randwiek Asylum reference was made by one of the directors to reports which had reached him of excessive severity having been exercised towards the inmates by the officials in charge of them. Previous to this attention had been directed towards the possibility of something being wrong by the circumstance of a dozen hoys having bolted from the institution to all appearance with no other object then make a demonstration, as they simply went as far as one of the public reserves, and thence allowed themselves to be taken to the house of Mr Smart as I mentioned before, and thence back to whence they came. However, an investigation was agreed upon, and a sub-committee appointed to take evidence. The evidence taken proved rather sensational. The witnesses were attendant, paßt and present, at the asylum, and their testimony has been remarkably unanimous. Flogging appears to have been the rule and not the exception. Positively the accounts given of the discipline remind one forcibly of Dotheboy'a Hal), and the administration of Mr Squeers. It is testified, and not denied by the officers involved, that the vaulting horse, provided for the exercise and sport of the boys, was utilised as a whipping block over which unlucky children were extended, and their companions made to hold them in poo tion while their bare flesh was flagellated with quince switches (ied in * bunch, If the wit-

nouses are to be believed, little bits of babies were flogged for the deadly sin of running across a tabooed grass plot, or swinging on some tempting chains; the matron was in the habit on cold mornings of caning small girls on their hands just after they had been scrubbing ; the man Groble had an ingenious plan of caning on the back of the band as well as the palm, and of occasionally varying the style by caning the bare toes of the children. I think, however, the following is tne creamy lit of the evidence: — " Mrs Ebery, an attendant in the institution, stated—l have been ten weeks in the institution, having the care of No. 2 Division of Boys ; I have seen boys beaten on the horse three times; on one occasion a boy named Davidson, from my division, was held on the horse by his own brother, while he received, I believe, twelve strokes ; I ran away before the punishment was finished ; it was so horrid I could not stay ; he was beaten by the male attendant, and Mr Thomas was th ro; the boys said they were beaten because they went outside picking green berries ; another boy had three patches of skin off his seat or buttocks, through being beaten ; I thought he was beaten most brutally ; I saw the blood and the matter from the injuries, and when the boy went to church his trousers Btuck to his seat; I thought he should have been Bent to the Hospital; he was crying wi"h pain ; I took him to my dormitory and put oil upon where he had been beaten, and he got better; but be suffered very muoh ; three different times the doctor saw him ; this beating took place about threo weeks ago : the scabs aro now falling off the boy's seat, but the marks where the scabs were remain ; this boy was not beaten upon the horse ; I believe he was beaten in Mr Thomas's office, on the occasion when the boys were brought back by the police after running away ; Miss M'Donald told me the boys had no beds, except some old drosses which Bhe, taking pity on the boys, gave them j I have seen boys beaten on their hands and on their bare toes most cruelly; particularly when I came hero the toes of the boys were in a dreadful state ; I have spoken to Goble on several occasions about it; one one occasion I saw Mr Thomas take the cane out of the attendant's hand, telling him at the time he was not beating the boy half hard enough, and himself beat the boy on the foot, and the boy dropped on the floor ; an attendant named Burns was present, and must have seen it; I thought the beating on the toes most brutal; I am the mother of three children, and I thought if he did this to one of my children I would not answer for the consequences ; I think this occurred six or seven weeks ago; I have seen G-oble more than a dozen times strike the children on the feot; I should be prepared to give this evidence in a court of justice on oath ; I have spoken at different timeß to Mrs Beid about the children being beaten, and she has seen them beaten on tho toes and on the feet; it was quite a common occurrence when I came here to beat them on the bare feet; one boy had a terribly sore finger, which it was painful to see, and this was caused by the cane; the boy said so, and G-oble did not deny it; I took the boy down to Mr Thomas and the matron, and showed them the finger; the boy was in terrible pain, and I got some warm water for the finger; Mr Thomas said to me, "Don't say it was done by the cane, Mrs Ebery, it might cost the man his situation," and Mrs Thomas, who came there said, " That is not a cut from the cane, it is a stonebruise ;" I have seen the man take a boy's arm under his and beat him a dozen at a time, and I have said to Goble, " You will break the children's fingers, man, the most useful things they have ;" this was done for the most trifling things in the bathroom in the morning; sometimes it was done if the boys would not stand straight in muster; sometimes if they talked ; and as regularly as the children have gone to bed that man has commenced beating them ; I have stopped him, and he has said, "If you stop me beating these children I will send Mr Thomas to you ;" ono evening the boys had just got up from their prayers, and he commenced beating one boy ; I said what are you beating that boy for, he has done nothing ;" he ordered the boy to stand in his night shirt till Mr Thomas came, and Mr Thomas when he came said, " What right have you to interfere with the attendant's beating;" I said, " He is just beating the boy for nothing; the boy had just got up from his prayers, and he had given the boy four strokes, and was about beating him horribly;" Mr Thomas , said, "What difference is it that he has said his prayers ?" and I thought shame on a gentleman and a member of the Church of England to say such a thing; I have boxed a boy's ears on two occasions for dirty practices, but I did not hurt the boys, and I did not know that it was against the rules for attendants to box tho ears of the children; I have seen all the attendants boxing the children's ears; I have seen two and twenty boys brought down together from the dormitory, put into the bath room, and kept there till breakfast time ; then they have been brought to watch the other boys eating their breakfast, and afterwards taken to the cells and fed on bread and water; sometimes it has been forgotten to give them this, and sometimes I have been told not to put the paltry bit of treacle on their bread."

After making every allowance for the unreliableness of the evidence given by discharged servants of whom one gave testimony, there appears little room to doubt that there has been a great deal of habitual cruelty. The man G-oble had been an engineer in India, and used to deal with tho submissive Hindoo. What constituted his qualifications for the post he holds I cannot say. The subcommittee have as yet come to no conclusion, but the public have. Meanwhile the asylum remains under the management of the Superintendent Thomas, and Goblo is etill at his post, but as might be expected all discipline is at an end. The boys know perfectly the position in which their officers stand, the latter are scared, and do not dare to exercise the vigorous authority which would be requisite to maintain their shaken prestige, and the boys are breaking bounds and doing pretty nearly as they please. There appears to be a determined inclination on the part of the committee to shield their officers, and as the evidence has been otherwise unrefuted, their sympathisers are taking as much of the edge off as possible, by assailing the character of some of the witnesses, employes at the Asylum. The female whose evidence I have extracted has not, however, been in any way aspersed, nor has her veracity been impugned, so that Chappel's and the other man's evidence may be left out of the question altogether, without making the case look any better for the accused. Passing on to our second sensation. On Sunday, the sixteenth instant, the Wantabadgery Hotel was stuck up by a gang of bushrangers. Two travellers passing by saw a woman sitting crying outside the hotel, who told them that they had better clear away as fast as possible, as the place had been taken possession of by bushrangers, who had only gone away for a time, and were coming back. The advice ran too nearly with the hearers' opinions to be neglected, especially as one of the travellers had £4O about him. The £4O man made the quickest time he could into Gundegai, twentyeight miles distant, and informed the police. This was at 11 o'clock at night, and it was not till the following morning that the troopers started out. Meanwhile the telegraph was busy, and the intelligence of the outbreak reached Sydney about 1 o'clock in the morning, and i enforcements were despatched at once, but re-called before they had reached the scene, in consequence of the rapid succession of events. Meanwhile, all the police stations and townships in the district had been apprised of tho event which had taken place, but the bushrangers wore making hay while the sun shone, having stuck up the Wantabadgery station after leaving the public-house. At the station they locked up thirteen persons in a hut for tan hours, while they ran in the station horse 3 and selected remounts. Next they appear to have stuck up a store kept by a man at Clarendon, and also intercepted and bailed up the mailman. The accounts yet to hand are confused and contradictory, and it is difficult to construct a coherent narrative out of them. It appears, however, that the first troopers to silly forth, started from Wagga Wagga, twenty-five miles from the scene. They were but four in number, and after their departure there was an interval of suspense, terminated by intelligence that the police had encountered the bushrangers, and had found themselves outnumbered —the men in buckram running up to nine or ten at this stage—and had been desperately resisted, surrounded, and compelled to abandon their horses and seek cover in a deep swamp, to escape the bullets of the desperados. Crossing this swamp three of them remained to observe the bushrangers, and one made his way back to carry the news of the critical situation, and to hurry up reinforcements. Meanwhile, the bushrangers remained masters of the field, and of the troopers' horses. Apparently

tho police retained their arms, and their cover was too good to permit of their being got at, for their assailants seem to have left them and encountered a solitary trooper tiding to the rendezvous, whom they overpowered and deprived of horse and equipment. When the news of the dilemma of the police reached Gundagai, the District Court had just opened, but the judge instantly adjourned it in order that every constable present might hasten to the rescue, and special constables were sworn in to guard the prisoners for trial and the town. The whole country side was up by this time. The defeated police, as soon as they were free to leave cover, made their way to Beverley's (a homestead of some kind), where they got remounts and picked up Trooper Wiles, the one who had been deprived of horse and weapons. There also thoy met the reinforcement from Gundagai, and armed men from the railway camp at Junee joined them. Mr Beveridge and two armed companions had already started out to meet the police, but had met the bushrangers instead, having fallen into an ambuscade. They were made prisoners. Mr Beveridge was compelled to shoot his own horse, and after a sort of court-martial he and his companions were given five minutes to prepare for death. At this critical moment the videttos of the police and others now advancing came in eight, and compelled the ruffians to look to their own safety. A desperate fight began. The bushrangers found themselves surrounded in their turn. Ono of their number fell, and the rest retreated to a hut close at hand. For half an hour they defended thomaelves with desperation. Another was shot in the hut. Constables Berry and Honley had their horßOs killed under them. Constable Bowen fell, his neck pierced with a bullet. But at length two of the bushrangers came out and surrendered, another was secured, wounded, and the sixth and last managed to break away and escape. The notorious Captain Moonlight and his mate Nesbit are said to be among the gang, the former one of the prisoners. Poor Bowen'e wound is considered likely to prove fatal. The police are in hot pursuit of the fellow who escaped. Entertainments are extremely flourishing just at present, or at last some entertainers are. The Williamsons, at the Boyal, have been doing especially well with " Struck Oil" and " The Chineso Question," the latter a flimsy piece of rubbish, in which the only good feature is Williamson's " make up " as a Chinaman, which is immense. They havo now substituted "Pinafore," with moßt handsome and liberal mite en seem. Signor Giorza has been engaged to conduct the music, and the orchestra strengthened. Tho Signor is revelling in good things. The Exhibition Commissioners pay him £25 per week as musical director. Williamsons' give him £ls per week as conductor of " Pinafore, and he has tho pick of the music pupils of Sydney. Considering that his terms for instruction range from £5 5s per quarter for a weekly lesßon of half an hour to £l2 12s for two lessons of a hour each per week, with an ex'ra guinea if he attends at the pupil's residence, an idea of the fatnesß of the land, for him, may be gathered.

The Collector of Customs hag been suspended ia consequence of certain revelations made during the investigation into the causes of insolvency in the case of his brother, a much respected clergyman of the Church of England. Briefly stated, the Collector has been in difficulties for years, and got his brother to help him. Unfortunately the parson did not only help him with his substance, but also with his name on paper, and as the collector had never fully revealed the extent of his entanglements,the clergyman found himself called upon to pay thousands. The Collector had it appeared been at the mercy of the money lenders for years, and under pecuniary obligations even to wine merchants, brewers, and distillers. The Government say they don't regard the position as satisfactory, and call on him to show cause why he should not be removed from his office. They must have known his situation years ago. If they did not they were about the worst informed people ia Sydney. Colonial boys have been shaping well in some recent instances. Down at Cooks river, on the 8!h instant, two girls of about twelve went to bathe, got out of their depth in a strong tideway, and one, managing to regain shallow water, screamed for help for her drowning companion. On the opposite shore were two boys, fifteen and thirteen respectively, sons of a solicitor named Gannon. They heard the screams, got into their boat, and pulled quickly to the place. The girl had already disappeared, and her companion indicating where she had gone down, the boys were preparing to dive for her, when one of her feet appeared above water. They managed to seize that, and the body of the girl was dragged into the boat. They pulled ashore, and sending the other girl for help, placed the one they had recovered face down on the bank, and set to work to carry into practice their recollections of directions for reviving apparently drowned persons, which luckily they had recently read. It was a quarter of an hour before any signs of consciousness appeared, but the girl ultimately revived. Again, on the 11th inat., a lad of fifteen, named Craddock, saved the life of a lad who went into a waterhole in the rocks at Bondi, on the coast, a few miles south of Sydney, for a swim and sank. Craddock happening to come by, saw the body lying at the bottom, and, without stopping to undress, dived in and got it up to the surface. Once there he set to work to chafe the body, and kept at it till returning animation made itself manifest. A very good feature was that when some other boys who came up advised Craddock to take the rescued boy to the residence of the latter's parents, not far distant, he refused, because " they might think he wanted something." This is pretty fair, but is as nothing compared with an episode at Oooktown, Queensland, where a small-sized boy of twelve, bathing on the ocean beach with a lot of little girls, who with himself when sitting hand in hand to let the surf break over thom were swept into deep water by a larger wave than usual, ewam ashore with his elder sister, and then dashed in for another girl, and although he got her into shallow water was so exhausted that both would have been swept out again had not a bigger boy of fourteen or fifteen been attracted by tho screaming, and come up just in time to help them out of the Burf. This boy immediately swam out three times, bringing to shore a girl on each occasion —two dead, one insensible. I cannot conceive how children are allowed to bathe on 01 those shark-haunted beaches of the South Pacific.