GARDINER THE BUSHRANGER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1073, 13 May 1882, Page 2

GARDINER THE BUSHRANGER.

A Rookhampton man, Mr Beardmore, of Tooloomba, has interviewed Frank Gardiner, the notorious ex-bushranger, in Frisco, and desoribes him as "a res-pectable-looking man, though rather grogblossomed." Gardiner told his visitor .that he was very hard up, and that through giving too muoh credit he had lost his saloon, and had been living out of doors for six months, sleeping on wharves, &0,,- or anywhere he could find shelter for the night. He also said he would rather be baok in N. S.W., living on damper and mutton, than in the height of luxury in California, He further stated that, when taken prisoner in the Aberorombie Moun-. tains, about 1862, he bought, himself off, from one of his captors for the sum of 150 10s, and that in addition paid the same person i'3oo to say little about him when on his trial. Thus vanishes the false glory of the bushranger. The wiry, ,„ black-haired, sallow man once the » patron saint of every flash native horsethief—has from sticking up escorts descended to sleeping in wharf-boilers in a foreign land. Gardiner's father once kept a " Johnny-all-sorls" shop in Kentstreet, Sydney. Mrs Brown, the woman with whom the bushranger lived at the time of his capture, shot herself some years ago in N.Z, From all accounts, Gardiner has for a long time had very hard times. Several. Sydney men who have met him in 'Frisco concur in describing him as utterly broken down, orippled by rheumatism, and as Bitting behind the bar of his little drinking den, which bore the sign of "The Twilight" while a female served drinks to his customers,