"SYDNEY COVES"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 266, 4 July 1932, Page 2

"SYDNEY COVES"

AMERICAN SLANG LINGO INCORPOiRATING THE '' ARGOT OF T.IIIEVES' « KITCHENS. PICTURESQUE CRIMINAL GANG. Modern American slang is a curious mixture. Embedded in it are some of the cant words of the thieves' kitchens, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph. You will find these words in the "Dictionary of the Flash Language' by-that eminent pdckpocket and corivict, James Hardy Vaux, who worked at the coal mines of the Hunter River in 1812. How did they get to America? They were probably carried acrossthe Pacific by the "Sydney Coves" or "Sydney Ducks" who made their headquarters in Sydney Valley, San Francisco, in the hectic days that followed the finding of gold at Sutter's - Mill in 1848. These Australians -by adoption who went from Britain to California, by way of Sydney and of Hobart Town, play a large part in the history of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, written by Mary Floyd Williams, of the University of California, who visited Australia some years ago, and di research work at the Mitchell Library. When the Vigilantes were formed the first man hanged by them was a "Sydney Cove," John Jenkins. Reputed to have been an old convict, Jenkins had kept a doubtful lodging house, the Uncle Sam, in 'Friseo. On June 11, 1851, Jenkins stole a small safe and dropped with it into a boat. When chased he threw the safe overboard. There was very little in the safe, which was fished up with oyster tongs. Though Jenkins had a bad record and was suspect-ed of having poisoned another "Sydney Cove" who had bought the Uncle Sam from him, the committee hesitated about hanging him until William A. Howard said: "Gentlemen, as I understand it, we came here to hang somebody." That settled it. Jenkins asked for a drink and a cigar, and calmly smoked the cigar. An attempted rescue was made by friends of Jenkins, and the police also tried to interfere, but he was duly hanged at the corner of the Plaza. » Gang Chieftain. A few days later the chief of the Vigilante police, Van Bokkelen, observed Thomas Belcher Kay, late of Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, and more recently warden of the port of San Francisco, talking to a suspicious character. Inquiries showed that Kay was a leading member of the Stuart gang of desp'eradoes. He eluded his enemies, once disguising himself as a woman. Kay's real name seems to have been Gibson. Before he was transported to Van Diemen's Land he had been known in London and Paris as Singing Billy and Count Peri. Kay turned up again in South America. In 1855 he was one of the leaders of a gang of ruffians and bandits at Valparaiso. Though ahnost illiterate, he was a great dandy. So, by the way, was the more noted James Stuart, also known as Mason, Campbell, Carlisle, Long Jim and English Jim. Stuart, who had been sent to New South Wales for forgery at the age of sixteen, reached Califor- ' nia in November, 1849, so that he was a genuine 'forty-nin-er. Late in 1850 • he and two other "Sydney Coves" met near Foster's Bar. They concluded that "they might as well be dead as witbout money, and agreed to go up to the mountains and | rob everyone they met till each had £4000." So they shot Charles Moore and stole his gold. An attempt was made to lynch Stuart at Maryville, but the rope broke. He went to Sydney Valley, organised a gang, and Carried out many daring robberies. He also broke open the gaol and released the men charged with a Customs House robbery at Monteray, after committing pirjury on their behalf under the name of Carlisle. "Tiresome" Execution. Stuart made a confession in which he described, incidentally, how he went to mass at St. Jose,' keeping his eyes alert for golden images reported as enshrined in the sanctuary. He had good friends who tried hard, but in vain, to get him out of the hands of the Vigilantes. On July 11, 1851, the committee decided to hang him. Stuart remarked that the proceedings were " tiresome," yawned, and horrowed a quid of tobacco. Stuart met his fate at a derrick on the pier. "He marched as erect and with as firm a tread as any innoeent man," says an eye-witness. Stuart's gang included about twen-ty-five men. The most "noted of them was Samuel Whittaker, who, like Stuart, had been transported to New South Wales as a lad, and had come to California in 1849. Whittaker was about thirty years of age, of medium height, courageous, and manly in his bearing, and neat and p'articular in his dress, and the smartest thief in the gang. His associate, Mrs. Mary Ann Hogan, also from Sydney, is described as "uite genteel in appearance, and one who might safely keep a crib without ever being suspected." Whittaker made a confession, in which he dealt with pleasure on his influence in politics and on the dozen "old lags" whom he had led to the polls to assist in the election of Malachi Fallon as marshal of the eity. He had also been a juryman. The police rescued Whittaker and Rohert Mackenzie, another Sydney , man, from the Vigilantes, but the latter broke open the gaol, took the doomed man out, and hanged him. Whittaker died as he had lived, "brav-e as Caesar," as one of the Vigilanifcs records.