A DEFIANT RUFFIAN.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 74, 1 November 1884, Page 4

A DEFIANT RUFFIAN.

{KY TFIE AUCKLAND " STAR'S " CORRESPONDENT. )

You may remember my sending you some mails ago a description of the pursuit and i capture of a burglar named Wright, who, after shooting two policemen, ran up a ladder on to the housetops at Foxton, and was chased from roof to roof by three plucky constables. They eventually caught him, but not till his revolver got disabled. Well, on Thursday, last when this ruffian was committed for trial, a most extraordinary scene took place. The Magistrate as usual a<?ked the prisoner if he had any statement to make, upon which Wright flung down his cap and defiantly entered into a long statement of his proceedings when committing this burglary. But his first observations were, that as he had promised to tell the Magistrate the truth of the matter, he wished to show him what a lot of perjury was in the case, and if he had cross-examined, the witnesses as he might have done, that would have been shown. He added : " When I tell you my experience of penal servitude you will see why I carried a revolver — not to frighten these bold constables, but to fight them." He then entered into a narrative of the mode by which he entered the prosecutor's house on the night in question, detailing how he had tried a back door, but found it would make too much noise to force it ; how he had got to a parlour window, farced back the catch, and opening the window entered the room, which, he said, "I thoroughly searched, and took what I thought worth having." After that, when engaged breaking open a plate cupboard, he heard someone descending the stairs, and so left the house. He hid himself in the grounds of the church, and waited there for two hours, at the end of which time he heard footsteps approaching, and saw a constable walking up the grounds. Then (as if with hesitation) he said, "I must now admit that this man (with a sneer at Wheatley) was with me." He proceeded to say that on the constable getting near him he challenged him to stand off, or he would "send a bullet through him." The constable, he admitted, proceeded, undeterred, to climb the gate, and approach them. Then he (Wright) climbed the railings to get out. He saw the constable (Garner) rush for Wheatley, "who," he said, "had no revolver out, or I shouldn't be here." On that he (Wright) fired a bullet at the constable's shoulder from a distance of about fifteen yards. As the prisoner proceeded in his narrative, which was a repetition of the facts in evidence, he spoke in the most callous manner of his attempts to take life, remarking that he threatened he would " put a bullet " into this or that man or constable. Whenever he referred to Wheatley it was always with a sneer, as "this man." Some of the witnesses he laughed at as he detailed how they got out of the way of his revolver, and Wheatley, he said, when the constable struggled with him for his revolver, seemed to give it up very quickly. Garner, he said, pointed the revolver he had secured to shoot him (Wright), " and then," he added, " I determined to give him one where I thought I could drop him." These latter words escaped the ear of the clerk, and Mr Poland repeated them, whereupon Wright, with an access of insolence, said, "Shut your mouth." Proceeding, he said that after he had shot Garner, he thought it was no use fighting any more for Wheatley, and that he should have a try for his own liberty. Thereupon he ran, but found that some eight men and two constables were after him, though none of them would get near him. Proceeding to describe how he mounted the roof of a house, he said, " This is where the fun comes in." He admitted that he cleared his revolver and put in fresh cartridges, und went on over the roofs. A man, six feet high, he said, got up after him, and he (the prisoner) told him to go down, or he v/ould shoot him. " The man," he added, "went down quicker than he got up, and was the only wise man of the lot." Later on he found himself pursued by eight or ten men on the roof, and •when he threatened to put a bullet into them, they hung on to the chimney-pots and trembled like leaves in the wind. He cleared the roof, he said, and was making his way to escape in another direction when a little boy from below called out, "There he goes," and pointed him out again. "Such a little boy," said the prisoner, "that I could eat him if I had him here." Describing the accident to his revolver, he said that he was jumping from one roof to a lower when one foot went through the roof, and his revolver struck on a ledge, and he found he could not mend it—" worse luck," he added " or I should not] be here." After that, although his revolver was about as good as a penny popgun, he still pointed it when the men and constables got up on the roof, and they cleared off at once. Then, from below, they began to pelt him with stones and bricks, and he retaliated with the same for about half an hour. When he had tried another jump and hurt himself, a man got hold of him, and then they all fell on him together, one man splitting his head open with a gun stock, another striking him with an iron bar, and others beating and kicking him. He thought, he said, " That that was brutal and unnecessary." What he had done was for his liberty, not for their lives, for he could have phot half a dozen of them from the roof. He could have shot Garner, only he was afraid of shooting Wheatley. Concluding his narrative he said, " I have done this knowing what was before me, for I have had two terras of penal servitude, and knew what chance I had. And now, your Worship, if you listen to me I'll tell you why I should make up my mind not to go back, if I could help it." Mr Hannay : No, Ido not think so. It has nothing to do with this case. If it were any answer to the charge, I would listen to it, but it is not. Wright : No, you don't want the public to know how they treat the convicts— half starve them, while the governors are living on the fat of the land, and making money out of the poor convicts. I should like the public to know the life they have to endure, and when they're turned out they are hunted by the police, and have no chance of earning an honest living. If I had plenty of gold I should get out of this as others have done. But you will not let the public know. Mr Hannay : I will listen at any length to anything you have to say in answer to the charge, but that has nothing to do with it. Wheatley simply said that he would reserve his defence. • Mr Hannay then told them that they were fully committed for trial at the Central CriminarCourt. Wright, as he was removed from the dock, muttejed some threats, and said, "Take my word, before twelve months are over you will hear of something worse than this,"