REMINISCENCES OF THE WEST COAST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1196, 15 January 1914, Page 4

REMINISCENCES OF THE WEST COAST.

THE KELLY GANG. Apropos of the West Coast jubilee, pioneers have -been exchanging old lime stories concerning the "rush” tiue of the early days. ‘June r , 1866, was the dale when liar.!. •. Levy and Kelly were hangeu in Nelson Gaol,’' states Mr James M’Dovvell, now ot Wellington, who witnessed the execution. "I was in Greymouth,’' he added, "when Mr Dobson, the county engineer, was murdered by tbe thugs at a lonely spot some three miles from Greymouth. Mr Dobson had been missed for some days. Th . packers on the track to "Twelve Miles” noticed at oue part of tue track an offensive smell. They thought it was a dead sheep, but on . instigating the cause of the atench, they louud the body of Mr Dobson, fully clothed, with his theodolite ou his back, and his money in his pocket. The money consisted of notes and silver. Tire gang never took any money lor tear ol identification. They always appropriated tbe gold dust and nuggets, which used to be carried by the diggers in ‘shammy’ leather bags, Dobsou’s body was brought into Greymoutb. An inquest was held at Kilgour’s Union Hotel. Mr W. H. Revdl was coroner, and 1 was foreman ol the jury. One of the witnesses was De Lacy, who kept the Cosmopolitan stables. He got the notion that he was being tried, and said : T will confess. 1 did not do the murders. I merely supplied them with horses.’ lu the course of his examination he said that the suspected murderers had gone in the Kennedy steamer, Captain Whitwell, to Nelson. The police at once sent word word to Nelson. It was there ascertained that the gang bad gone to the Wakaraariuo goldfields, and from there they were traced back to Nelson. Ex-Detective Trimble knew of them as had characters in Victoria ; and be assisted the police in following up the murderers. They were found in Hailey’s hop gardens behind a big thorn hedge. Several of the police in plain clothes went into the garden as if they were ordinary workmen. The uniform policemen closed in ou the road near by. When tbe police in plain clothes came ou tbe murderers they louud them engaged in dividing the gold which they had taken liorn the last (our ; victims they had strangled. The police at once rushed and overpowered them before they could get out their revolvers, for they were fully armed. They were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Sullivan, who turned Queen’s evidence, was reprieved, but the other three vveie hanged. Sullivan remained iu gaol for a long time after bis reprieve- It was felt by the authorities and also by himself that bad be been immediately released be would have been killed by the infuriated miners, to avenge the numerous deaths he and his confederates had caused. He v.'as eventually smuggled away, disguised, to Victoria, where he formerly lived, and ultimately, I believe, died of cancer iu San Francisco. Burgess’s letter recalls the fact that Levy was a Jew and he acted —and persuaded bis partners iu crime to act —on the old law, "Ii you shed mau’s blood, by man shall your blood be shed.” The method by which they committed their murders was as follows : They would watch tor a lonely digger walking along a track with his parcel of gold for the bank. One of the four men would ove--take him and enter into conversation. A second member of the gang would then approach. When he got dose enough, the first man seized the victim by the threat, the second confederate pinioned his arms and assisted K dragging him down backvvaro’s. In a few moments they would have the unfortunate man strangled, I examined Mr Dobson’s „ody at the inquest. There were four distinct black marks of the fingers ou one side of the throat and the thumb mark on the other side. I was present, as I have said, at tbe hanging of three men at Nelson. I

have seen several men banged, but I have never seen greater cowards than Burgess, Kelly and Levy. They all bad to be assisted on to tbe scaffold by warders. They seemed in a state of collapse through fear and their faces were the colour of parchment. It iV3S known for certain bow many murders they committed, but Sullivau said he believed they had murdered 74 persons. They buried a good many of their victims iu the beach between Hokitika and Greymoutb, others were buried iu the gullies, whilst in other cases the bodies were lelt where the murder bad occurred. All four men were known to the Victorian police. How they disposed ol the gold was never discovered. They had about worth of gold on them when they were arrested. OKARITA BANK ROBBERY. Okarita, a township a considerable distance south of Hokitika, was a great gold centre iu 1865. The diggers used to come iu from Five Mile and bring large quantities of gold to the banks for sale. There were, as iu other mining townships, a number of hotels and dancing rooms in Okarita. On oue occasion in 1866 a party of goldminers came iu with their gold at night. They enquired for tbe manager of tbe bank as they wished to deposit their gold iu tbe bank. Tbe manager was found, and he placed the gold in the banksafe. The party then went to the dance, at the conclusion of which the manager aud his assistants returned to the bank aud slept there, as was the custom them The manager missed his keys next morning. He found the safe locked, and on procuring a duplicate key discovered that the safe had been robbed, of gold, coined gold aud notes, amounting to - 000, none of which was ever recovered ; the robbers were never brought to justice.