THE KELLYS.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3589, 28 June 1880, Page 3

THE KELLYS.

Sebastopol, the scene of the last nefarious outrage of the Kelly gang, stands on the Watershed, between the Murray and Ovens rivers, aud isabout 12 miles distant from Wangarata. It is a rich mining town, and it is not strange that the Kellys, always with an eye to the pocket, should have fixed upon it as a suitable place to pursue their dastardly exploits. The town is most favourable to highwaymen, and the facilities of escape are so great that the utmost efforts of the police would be unavVHng. The country round this miniature El Dorado is of the roughest description. The virgin, forests, where the rough hands of the woodman have never desecrated Nature's sacred and sylvan retreats, enshroud the town witn luxuriant verdure, while the steep mountain ... ranges— eminently qualified for purp ses of flight or refuge—cast their sombre shadows like a winding sheet over the inhabitants of this gold mining community. The gullies approach the town by a steep gradient, and are so precipitous that the traveller after descending those steep ravines, nnds himself in the streets of the township. The manner in which the Kellys entered the town appears very simple. Having reached the heights overlooking the town, where they could see every thin* that was wring on beneath them, without fear of beiDg discovered, they descended one of the aforementioned gullies, and tethering their horses to small trees. dismounted and walked into the town. No suspicion as to their real identity was Felt, and after patrolling the streets for a short time, they outwitted the troopers, and shut them up in durance vile, intended perhaps for themselves. The escape was effected in the same manner as the entrance. Were the police to track them they would journey as far as the Murray, distant some eleven mites, and would be then sheltered by the almost impenetrable bush in New Sowth Wales. The bush around Sebastopol is so dense, and such a similarity pervaues the whole of it, that the traveller once unfortunate enough to be beguiled into it would find it almost impossible to make his way out. Ine arching forest trees completely shut out the sunli&ht, and ihe jungle is enveloped in Egyptian darkness. Sfbastopol is about 180 miles from Melbourne, and about 12 miles from the frontier. We sincerely hope the energetic police will be successful, as at present neither lite nor property is safe from the murderous vagabonds who constitute the Kelly [By a late cable despatch we learn that Jf.,l Kelly has been captured, and the pc I:ce expect to have the other members of the gang in safe keeping during the day-] * _____