THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT YOUR FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1880.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3602, 13 July 1880, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT YOUR FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1880.

We learn from our Australian despatches that people over there are much exercised over the manner in which the Kelly gang were captured, and no wonder. We hare no hesitation in characterising the action of the police as cowardly, brutal, and altogether reprehensible. A more dastardly means of compelling surrender pan hardly be conceived. Let us just look at the strategy adopted by the police. The Kellys staying in a hotel where there are also a number of the public. The Kellys number four, actually four, and upwards of a score of constables excluding outsiders, are sent to capture these four. The Superintendant (Hare) holds a council of war and doubtless with herioc notions determines to turn the affair into a tragic romance which will be sung by future bards in honour of his name. He accordingly marshalls his forces to attack the four—something after the manner in which the raliant Snodgrass commenced a violent onslaught on a small boy, or the strategy employed in the renowned battle of Dorkin. With hearts quaking with fear, but with' all the outward appearance of bravery, the police armed to the teeth advance on the hotel and potir upon the offenceless inmates a leaden hail/ which does almost as much harm to the guiltless as it-" does to the beseiged vagabonds. All the time, however, a desultory fire is being kept up by the members of the gang. This clever strategy of the police had the effect of making themselves targets for the outlaws, who were in comparative security behind the walls of the building. Had they closed with the beseiged. which was the more manly course—but whteh of coarse was not adopted—the affair, instead of being prolonged for some hours, would bave been short and decided. There was less danger in this coarse, as, although a hand-to-hand conflict would have ensued, the Kellys would have immediately been captured. This the authorities had not pluck enough to do, and resorted to the cowardly expedient of burning the hotel. Whether the legality of their action can or cannot be contested we do not know, but think that grave doubts exist as to the question. The innocent, previous to the burning of the hotel, were not distin*

guished from the guilty, and many wer c injured from balls aimed at the voub. The whole proceeding from beginning to end does not redound to the credit of the police, and we think they are deserving of the utmost condemnation for their cruel and brutal attack on the hotel, and that they should not receive even the ghost of a sixpence for their trouble. The civilians deserve far more kudos than the police, whose action was a monstrous example of cowardly excess.