BUSHRANGING DAYS RECALLED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10049, 23 May 1910, Page 4

BUSHRANGING DAYS RECALLED.

An unexpected echo 'of the Australian bushranging days of evil memory was heard in the Ballarat Court a few days ago, when a quiet-looking individual named John Franklin Dermoody pleaded guilty to being drunk and disorderly. In consideration of a lengthy abstention from any breach of the law, he was discharged. The presiding justice's casual query, "Anything known previously against this man?" brought the reply, "It is nearly forty years since he was before this Court," and thereby hangs an interesting tale. Thirty eight years ago, when Dermoody was only twenty, he and the notorious Captain Moonlight and four other prisoners made a sensacional escape from Ballarat gaol. Captain Moonlight, who had been committed or a charge ot breaking into a bank at Egerton, and Dermoody, who was alleged to have committed robbery at Clurjes. planned the escape for the night before the criminal sessions. The four others were awaiting trial for petty latencies. Dermoody was employed in the gaol kitchen, and secreted a butcher's knife, with which, by the simple process of hacking out a bricks, he opened up communication with the adjoining cell, occupied by Moonlight. About]! a.m., as pre-arranged, Moonlight pulled the nightbell in his cell, and when the warder arrived, he found Moonlight bant double with simulated pain in the stomach. At Moonlight's suggestion, the warder went away to obtain some hot water to relieve the pain, and Dermoody at once forced the lock of his own cell away, the butcher's knife having served to cut through the sheet-iron lining the door. When the unsuspecting warder approached with hot water, he was seized by the two men, and carried to the Jtitchen, where he was gagged and bound with a blanket I to the cook's table. Captain Moon ' light and Dermoody then set free the four other prisoners, and all six escaped by means of a rope and a stool, with which they scaled the high wall and lowered themselves to the road-

way. Moonlight, who was the son of a clergyman, and had himself been a lay reader, was re-captured, and in later years he was hanged at Darling- j hurst gaol, Sydney, for murder. Derrnoody, who is fifty-eight, and an American by birth, is still hale and hearty, and doe* not look his age. To a representative of the Melbourne "Age" he stated he and Moonlight, whose real name was Scott, received twelve months' imprisonment for the prison-breaking episode. He also professed his intention of giving up drink and trying to lead a new life, but he failed to live up to his new ideal, and was arrested the same night on a charge of being drunk and resisting the police, I i i 1. i T r 8