GARDINER, THE BUSHRANGER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 436, 20 September 1877, Page 4

GARDINER, THE BUSHRANGER.

A New South Wales journal, the Western Independent, says: —"A friend just back from America gives me a graphic description of the present appearance and occupation of the ones notorious Francis Christie, alias Gardiner, the bushranger. When in San Francisco I asked about Gardiner. Accompanied by a policeman, I went one clay, about 11 o'clock, to his whisky mill in street. It was a low, vile street, in the worst part of San Francisco, called 'The Barbary Coast.' The house was a filthy-looking, blackguard place, and all round on wooden forms were some ruffians, with heft of knife peeping oxit of their rags, but now powerless to use them, sleeping off the previous night's debauch. Gardiner looked simply wretched; he was crippled with rheumatism, and not improved by drinking some of his own grog, the vile compound called whisky—old Bourbon. He was only running the place for another man, who traded upon his evil name, but he was after all only a child in villany to the desperadoes who came to his place, so lie had not even the poor consolation of being a leader amongst them. Ruined in health and impoverished in pocket, none of his ill-gotten gains left, he said to my friend that he thought of sending a petition to the Government of New South Wales to be allowed to return, if it is only to serve out his time. California was killing him, and he would sooner be hanged in New South Wales than live there."