Black Snake (8 page)

The gang held up the Jerilderie police station in the early hours of Sunday, 9 February 1879. They soon had the town’s two policemen safely locked in their own jail and had made themselves comfortable in Constable Devine’s family quarters.

The gang was so confident of their success that they didn’t even feel they had to hide. Joe and Steve dressed up in spare police uniforms and rode around the town with the other policeman, Constable Richards. Townspeople thought they were new policemen being shown around the town. They didn’t realise that they were members of the feared Kelly Gang who were familiarising themselves with the town so that they could work out the best way to rob the bank.

The following morning Joe and Dan, dressed in police uniform, had time to buy some meat at the butcher’s and have their horses reshod. Then Ned put on a police uniform. He held up the publican in the hotel next door to the bank, telling him he wanted the use of his bar parlour for a few hours. He would hold the prisoners there.

Easy Money

Joe and Ned then held up the bank. The bank manager wasn’t present, but they took the bank clerks to the “prison” in the bar next door. Dan kept guard over them and anyone else who happened to come into the hotel.

When the bank manager returned, he was filling his bath when he found Steve Hart pointing a gun at him and demanding his key to the safe. Ned was again disappointed by the amount of money at the bank—just over £2000.

As an afterthought, Ned sent some of the townspeople to chop down the telegraph poles.

Publicity Campaign

Ned had a new, longer letter which he and Joe had written. Since he had had no luck writing to a politician, and the police had forbidden the press to print his letter, Ned needed a new way of getting his case heard. He wanted his new letter to be printed on handbills which would be circulated by the people themselves. This way, he thought, he could reach as many people as possible.

Like someone today who wants their grievances aired on a TV current affairs show, Ned believed that if the facts were known, people would under-stand that he had been forced to break the law.

Ned had hoped that the town’s newspaper editor would print his 56-page letter. He was annoyed when he discovered that the editor had found out that they were in town and had escaped. Instead Ned gave the letter to Mr Living, the bank’s accountant, who promised to give it to the editor. But Living didn’t keep his promise. Instead, he handed it over to the police. This second letter is known as the Jerilderie Letter.

“The Queen must surely be proud of such heroic men as the Police and Irish soldiers as It takes eight or eleven of the biggest mud crushers in Melbourne to take one poor little half starved larrikin to a watch house.”

Ned’s view of police as cowardly, Jerilderie Letter

“I give fair warning to all those who has reason to fear me to sell out and give £10 out of every hundred towards the widow and orphan fund and do not attempt to reside in Victoria… I am a widow’s son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.”

Closing words of the Jerilderie Letter

Unhurried Getaway

Even though they knew at least two people had ridden out of town to raise the alarm, the gang still didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave. They collected the money and went back to the hotel, where they bought drinks for their prisoners. Leaving the two policemen locked in their cell, Ned let the other prisoners leave. He stole a horse and a saddle, while Steve took the parson’s watch. When the owners complained about these thefts, Ned promptly gave them back again. Then they finally left town.

Reign of Terror

The bank robberies at Euroa and Jerilderie make interesting and, at times, amusing tales. But for people at the time, living in small remote towns with only one or two policemen to protect them, it wasn’t so amusing. They were afraid of the Kellys.

The police seemed powerless to capture them. The gang had killed three men. Though they had never killed any civilians, Ned had made a number of dire threats to do so. People thought that they would be safe as long as they surrendered quickly and willingly. They practised putting up their hands until they could do it as quickly as possible. Travellers along country roads made sure that they had their hands ready to raise if they were held up.

If newspaper readers around the country were eagerly waiting for the next daring and entertaining Kelly Gang exploit, they were disappointed. After Ned and his boys disappeared into the bush after the Jerilderie hold-up, it was almost a year-and-a-half before they were seen again.

What if you were there...

We’ve been camped in these freezing hills for nearly two weeks. I’m sick of it. Two weeks of sleeping during the day and then creeping out like thieves in the night to watch over the homes of the Kellys’ sympathisers. The Superintendent seems to think that sooner or later the Kellys won’t be able to resist the lure of home and we’ll be able to nab them. The trouble is the Kellys are cleverer than the senior police.

We are watching Maggie Skilling’s house. That’s Ned’s eldest sister. She’s just about the head of the family now, what with her brothers on the run and her husband and mother in jail for the Fitzpatrick business. She looks after her land, her children and her younger brothers and sisters. We’re pretty sure she feeds her outlaw brothers and their mates as well.

I don’t sleep well in the daylight. Yesterday was as bad as ever. Every time I woke with a rock in my side or the sun on my head, I’d smell bread baking. She’s got a lot of mouths to feed, has Maggie, but by the smell of it, this batch of loaves was for an even bigger crowd.

Last night, I was wet through from sitting out in a fine drizzle. The light had gone out in the house at about 10 o’clock, so I’d spent the hours of the night staring at darkness. Then at about four in the morning I noticed some movement—a single figure creeping out of the door and going over to the horses. I nudged Constable Mills next to me who, though he swears he wasn’t, was asleep. There was no moon, so it was hard to make out, but I could see that the figure was carrying heavy bags and heading to the horse paddock.

Whoever it was saddled one of the horses and mounted. We crept over to our horses and followed at a safe distance.

“This is it,” I whispered to Mills. “They’re taking food to the Kellys.”

It was hard tailing the horse what with there being no moon. After an hour I thought I’d lost them. Then suddenly we came out of the trees. The horse and rider were on the other side of a clearing. I held my horse still, hoping we hadn’t been seen, but it was too late. The rider spurred the horse which galloped off.

The chase was on then. We were gaining a little. The rider’s hat blew back and I could see long black hair stream out. She was wearing trousers and riding astride like a man, but I knew for sure it was Maggie Skilling and her saddle bags were stuffed full of food for her brothers.

Just as we thought we were going to catch her, she disappeared. Mills and I split up. I went up a ravine, while Mills followed another track. The ravine was steep and narrow, but there was no sign of her. The first light of the morning was just starting to smear the horizon. A terrible thought came to me. What exactly was I going to do if I suddenly came across the Kellys’ camp? If they were waiting at the end of this ravine, I’d be a sitting duck. I couldn’t possibly manage four men by myself. Just then a rider came up behind me. I turned, pulling my gun. Lucky I didn’t fire. It was Mills. The track he had followed had petered out. With guns drawn, we rode on without a word. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart. We rode up that narrow gap for an hour, always feeling that every moment could be our last. Then the track skirted around a large fallen rock and there in front of us was Maggie Skilling. She was sitting on a log with her thumbs pressed into her cheeks, her fingers waggling and her tongue stuck out.

“G’day, boys,” she said. “Out for some early morning air?”

I quickly glanced around. She seemed to be on her own. I dismounted and went to inspect her bulging saddlebags. If we couldn’t have the Kellys, we’d have Maggie on suspicion of aiding and abetting outlaws. I undid the buckles and pulled out the contents. The bags, both of them, were stuffed with tablecloths. When she saw my face, Maggie laughed till tears ran down her face.

Jim Dixon, volunteer Kelly hunter

The Legend Grows

“Circumstances have forced us to become what we are—outcasts and outlaws, and, bad as we are, we are not so bad as we are supposed to be.”

Ned thinks the gang doesn’t deserve its bad reputation, Letter to Chief Secretary

Soon after the Jerilderie hold-up, the reward for capture of the gang increased in both Victoria and New South Wales. There was now an unbelievable total of £8000 reward. This amount is the equivalent today of around $2 million. The fact that no one was ever tempted to give the Kellys away is an indication of the support they had. The gang’s exploits were already starting to move into the realm of legend. Songs were written about them and sung to the tunes of traditional Irish songs by their sympathisers and admirers. Joe Byrne, a man who was “for a bushman clever with his pen” is said to have written at least one of the ballads himself.

“My name it is Ned Kelly,

I’m known adversely well.

My ranks are free,

my name is law,

Wherever I do dwell.

My friends are all united,

my mates are lying near.

We sleep beneath these shady trees,

No danger do we fear.”

A verse from the ballad said to be composed by Joe Byrne.

On the Run

Life on the run must have been a strange ghost-like experience for the gang. They still never strayed far from home, but they were constantly on the move. They travelled up to 100 kilometres in a day—or rather in a night, for the gang always travelled at night. During the day they played cards and tried to get some sleep.

Their friends and families saw to it that they were well fed. Ned’s sister, Maggie Skilling, was their biggest supporter. A cooking fire could have easily given the gang’s hiding place away. So that they didn’t have to make a fire, Maggie baked bread, cooked meals and rode through the night to take the food to her brothers.

It wasn’t a comfortable life. The gang may not have gone hungry, but they suffered from lack of sleep and from boredom.

Counter Attack

The police were having no luck at all finding the outlaws. They decided that this was because their friends and relatives were too ready to help them. Even though they closely watched the Kelly house, Ned’s sisters still managed to outfox them. The police were getting more and more criticism from the press. Chief Commissioner Standish decided that he would attack the Kelly sympathisers.

Twenty-one friends and relatives of the gang were arrested and kept imprisoned without trial for months. But this didn’t have the effect that Captain Standish wanted. Not all of the men arrested were really Kelly sympathisers. The families of the arrested men were left short-handed on their farms. Instead of discouraging people from supporting the Kelly Gang, this ill-treatment only made people more sympathetic to their cause.

Captain Standish’s next step caused even more discomfort to poor people. Anyone suspected of helping the Kellys was banned from taking up new land selections. This was perhaps the worse thing he could have done. Right from the beginning Ned had been complaining that greedy, rich people prevented poor people from taking up land. The police commissioner was only proving Ned right. The troopers did pick on innocent poor people. The Kelly Gang’s support continued to grow.

“They used to rush into the house upset all the milk dishes break tins of eggs empty the flour out of the bags onto the ground…and shove the girls in front of them into the rooms like dogs so as if anyone was there they would shoot the girls first…”

Police ill-treatment of Ned’s sisters, Jerilderie Letter

“I dont think there is a man born could have the patience to suffer it as long as I did or ever allow his blood to get cold while such insults as these were unavenged and yet in every paper that is printed I am called the blackest and coldest blooded murderer ever on record. But if I hear any more of it I will not exactly show them what cold blooded murder is but wholesale and retail slaughter.”

Ned threatens the police, Jerilderie Letter

“This sort of cruelty and disgraceful conduct to my brothers and sisters who had no protection coupled with the conviction of my Mother and those innocent men certainly made my blood boil…”