GILBERT AND HALL IN THEIR OLD QUARTERS AGAIN.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 28, 11 January 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

GILBERT AND HALL IN THEIR OLD QUARTERS AGAIN.

(From the Burrangong Star, December 12th). The reign of terror has again commenced in this district. The villains, Hall and Gilbert, are once more amongst us. Like an invading army, ; these ruffians soon make their progress known by fire, rapine, violence, robbery, and too often murder. Nothing daunted by the losses they have sustained in the deaths of O'Meally and Burke, and the apprehension of Vane, they again brave justice, and set at defiance the outraged laws of the land. Some of [ the miscreants have met the fate they long deserved, two having been shot down like dogs. It was to have been both hoped and expected that the deaths of these men would have struck terror into the hearts of the outlaws. Vain hope ! Deceitful expectation ! It has only had the effect of making them more desperate and more callous to their fote. Last week the townspeople and inhabitants of the district generally were astounded at hearing rumors of the appearance of the desperadoes* in this part of the colony, and the natural consequence — sticking up of a number of persons on the Burrowa Road. All the information obtainable here was very meagre, the accounts being of a most contradictory nature. _ Hall and Gilbert since their visit, appear to have lost no tims. On Tuesday, '""Ist instant, forty men, women, and children* were stuck ud. On Saturday, the mail iro-':.i Xouug to Yass, via Burro wa. was i ■;:-rnppsd B'-id .-cubed. We eertsiniy are j iMfjrbed that people Will he so rash j in. reval'ixiup r-ctes to I '^ywi&y y -'sn&'-^ii\{<*v<. •., i pvao«;?-. hj - these I

very dangerous one of sending notes, ' either whole or in halves,. in letters through the medium of the post. This is dangerous at. all times. .Rivers and creeks are often flooded, «rid in swimming the' horses across them the. mail bags Ire liable to be saturated with water, and the contents materially if not \vhblly damaged. To the bushranging fraternity it is a lucky windfall, as bank notes are the only portion of booty in a mail'robbery that is valuable to them. Bank drafts, cheques, orders &c, are mere waste paper. We certainly consider it is holding a premium out to crime, the remitting of specie and notes by the mail. If this system was once discouraged, if people would only come to the determination to alter this plan of forwarding money, we should have fewer mail robberies ; in fact, they would soon cease altogether. We are led to these remarks by receiving information that one person who sent in a letter to Sydney by Saturday's mail, £63 in notes, was warned not to do so, and advised strongly to adopt a safer mode. His reply was, " I have remitted before in this manner, and the Dotes have arrived safely.'' No doubt, and so ■would those he posted on Saturday had not Gilbert and Hall stopped them. But who that remits money in these bushranging times can possibly calculate with any degree of certainty upon its safe arrival at its destination ? If we look at the mail robberies that have taken place since the discovery of these goldfields, and it is easy to recollect several, we can scarcely wonder that such has been the case, conveyed, as they generally are, by one unarmed man, either on horseback or in a spring-cart. The rider or driver would naturally fall an easy prey to even one armed miscreant, who would stop and rob him with impunity. It is time, we think, that additional escort should be provided to convey our correspondence with safety. The police authorities here on Monday took the precaution to order mounted troopers to escort the Yass mail (via Murrumburrab) to that township ; but this was after the Burrowa mail had been robbed. It reminds us of the old adage, " Locking the stible door after the horses are stolen.'' Every necessary precaution should be used, and everj'' assistance rendered by the Government to convey our letters and carry out the. postal arrangements with safety and dispatch. The stickingup at " Coffey's '' was known and commented upon last week. Hall and Gilbert were the perpetrators of the deed, and it was reasonable to suppose that they were prowling about the Burrowa district. Surely, then, a mounted escort, could have been sent with the mail on Saiurday to Marengo, and from thence to Burrowa and Yass in the same m inner as it vv&s on Monday with the Murrumburrah one. It is useless waiting till the mischief is done, and then act. '• Prevention is- better than cure.'' Had this plan been adopted, many, probably, who are now sufferers through the robbery, would not have had reason to regret sending remittances in notes, and their friends would have received them in due course. We notice, in the report of the mail robbery, that Gilbert expressed his anxiety to Mr Handley, a passenger in the mail cart, to get hold of a liurrangong Star, to see "what Vane had been saying." If they have perused our journal for many months past they must have seen that we have in no measured terms expressed our detestation and horror of their diabolical career. We have never swerved from our duty as public journalists to expose and make known their infamous crimes. No maudlin sentimentality has ever pervaded or found space in our columns. We'have carefully stripped them of all romance, and shown them in their true colors, as murderers and bloodstained ruffians of the deepest dye. Outlaws as they are we consider they ought to be shot down like wild beasts. They are a plague spot on the face of, and a curse to, this beautiful colony, and it would, we think, be a day of public rejoicing when bushranging is utterly extinct in it, and only remembered as a reminiscense of the past.