Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories

by Graham Seal

  The medical officer deposed:

  Yesterday afternoon I made an examination of the body of the deceased; owing to the advanced stage of decomposition it was impossible to form any definite opinion as to the cause of death, or to recognise the presence of marks of violence; if the body was in the water seven or eight days it would present the appearance it did; I should think the body by its appearance had been laying in the water from four to eight days.

  A neighbour gave evidence that Mrs Foster was ‘slightly under the influence of drink’ and asked her to look after her five-week-old infant ‘as she wanted to go away for a couple of days to get straight’.

  William Henry Foster, estranged husband of the deceased, had been in the marital home the day before his wife’s disappearance. She ‘was under the influence of drink’, he said. He had ‘frequently heard my wife threaten to commit suicide when under the influence of drink, especially since her sister did so’.

  The verdict surprised nobody: ‘found drowned in the lagoon on the Condobolin Road, on the 14th instant, but there was no evidence to show how deceased got into the water’.

  A week or so later, a stranger drove into town in a dray to collect the three Foster children. His name was Jim, surviving brother of Ned. The woman who had come to such a miserable end in the Forbes lagoon was the famous Kate Kelly.

  Known to the magazines of the day as ‘the girl who helped Ned Kelly’, Kate had been one of Australia’s first teen celebrities. The momentous events of 1878–80 had thrust her into the local, colonial and national limelight. The press and the police had her down as one of the gang’s main accomplices, secretly taking them food, clothes and ammunition and eliding the traps on wild goose chases miles from where the Kellys were hiding. Most of it was fiction; elder sister Maggie had done most of the aiding and abetting. But Kate was young, good looking and, like all the Kellys, feisty. They followed her movements, quoted her statements and made the ill-educated young girl a star.

  Her notorious brother was hanged at 10 a.m. on 11 November 1880. That night, Kate and brother Jim, together with Ettie, Steve Hart’s sister and reputed sweetheart of Ned, appeared on stage at the Apollo Theatre:

  A disgraceful scene took place last night at the Apollo hall, where Kate Kelly and her brother James Kelly were exhibited by some speculators. They occupied arm-chairs upon the stage, and conversed with those present. The charge for admission was one shilling and several hundreds of persons paid for admission.

  The show was reported in Sydney a couple of weeks later. The police, worried about the impact on the local larrikins, closed it down. Subsequently, Kate was reportedly giving displays of her riding skills and working in an Adelaide hotel as a kind of celebrity barmaid. The press tracked Kate for a while but then she disappeared.

  We now know that she went to live and work in the Forbes district. She married local man ‘Brickie’ Foster in 1888 and became Mrs Ada Foster to the world. She is buried in the Forbes cemetery under her married name, though ‘nee Kelly’ appears in brackets immediately below on her gravestone.

  Living legends

  One of the many Kelly legends had it that Dan Kelly and Steve Hart did not burn to cinders in the Glenrowan Hotel, but instead escaped to South Africa. In Pretoria, during the Boer War, the correspondent to the London Daily Express met them.

  One night, when Pretorians, under martial law regulations, had long retired to rest, I was aroused by a knock at the door. On opening it my acquaintance, now nervous and excited, walked in. ‘I have brought them,’ he whispered mysteriously. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘The boys.’ ‘What boys?’ ‘Dan and Steve.’ ‘Oh! you mean the Kellys? Show them in,’ I said, flippantly.

  He scowled reprovingly. He went out, and quickly returned with a deputation of two men of middle age, athletic, keen-eyed, sunburnt, firm-featured, typical Australian bushmen, who evidently knew what roughing it meant. There was no necessity for introductions. It was quite true I had met or nodded to them a score of times before that night. I did not know them, however, as ‘Dan Kelly’ and ‘Steve Hart.’ They sat down, and made themselves at home.

  ‘Now, which is Dan Kelly?’ I asked. ‘Here,’ said the darker-complexioned of the two, ‘but you must not say that name again.’ And don’t say mine, either,’ said Steve Hart. ‘What! Are you afraid?’ ‘Well, we don’t want it known,’ said Kelly. Then he added earnestly, ‘You promise never to mention this?’ ‘But why did you come to me?’ ‘Well, he,’ pointing to the acquaintance, ‘persuaded us. Now you promise that, or by—’ His voice was husky, and I interrupted, ‘You needn’t fear, for, in the first place, I have only your word for it and, in the second place, I have no ambition to court the anger of the Kellys.’ ‘Well, that’s all right.’

  A bottle was opened, pipes were filled, and long after midnight Dan Kelly, who had listened enthusiastically to stories of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, Gilbert, Burke, Vane, O’Meally, and other earlier Australian bushrangers, combed his bushy hair with his fingers, and said:—‘I don’t mind you using this if it’s worth while, but not before, say, three weeks, and we’re safe away. Steve and me and Ned and Joe Byrne was in that hotel all right. Ned got away, and we wus to follow him; but Joe was drunk, and we couldn’t pull him together.

  ‘When we wusn’t watching, Joe walked outside and wus shot. After that two drunken coves was shot dead through the window. They wanted to have a go at the police, so we gave them rifles, revolvers, and powder and shot. The firing where they fell wus too hot for Steve and me to reach them, so our rifles and revolvers wus found by their remains. This wus why they thought we wus dead. I’m sorry these coves didn’t take my tip, and go out with a flag, but they had the drink and the devil in them. I think Joe’s recklessness maddened them.

  ‘Well, me and Steve planned an escape. We wus in a trap and had to get out of it. We had with us, as we often had, traps’ [police] uniforms and troopers’ caps, and we put them on. We looked policemen in disguise all right, I tell you. The next question was how to leave the pub quietly. A few trees, bushes, and logs at the back decided us. We crawled a few yards and then blazed away at the shanty just like the traps. We retreated slow from tree to tree and bush to bush, pretending to take cover. Yes, cover from Steve and me!

  ‘Soon we wus among the scattered traps, who, no doubt, reckoned we wus cowards. But we banged away at the blooming pub, more than any of them. The traps came from 100 miles around, and only some know’d each other. So how could they tell us from themselves? We worked back into the timber, and got away. Soon afterwards we saw the pub blazing. Then we thanked our stars we wus not burnt alive. Well, we got to a shepherd’s hut, and we stayed there days.

  ‘The shepherd brought us the Melbourne papers, with pages about our terrible end—burnt-up bodies and all that sort of stuff. We heard of Ned’s capture, and we wus both for taking to the bush again; but the shepherd made us promise to leave Australia. He found us clothes and money. We got to Sydney and shipped to the Argentine. We’ve had a fairly good time since, and ain’t been interfered with. We don’t want to interfere with anybody either.

  ‘A few days ago we crossed to South Africa. The war broke out, and, not having work, we went to the front. We had some narrer escapes, but nothing like the narrer escape from that pub. We’re off in an hour or so, but we don’t want the world to know where. You can say what I told you, but wait three weeks or a month. Now, listen! If you give Steve and me away, this little thing in the hands of a friend of mine will blow you out’—and he put the point of his revolver almost into my eye. I looked at him sharply, and the awful glare in his eyes convinced me he meant it.

  Six weeks later I was surprised to encounter Dan Kelly and Steve Hart in Adderley-street, Cape Town. Dan Kelly said: ‘Well, you kept y’r promise. We haven’t heard nothing. You may write what you like after to-morrow.’

  I did not inquire their destination, and they did not volunteer the information.

  The stranger

  Over six
foot tall and weighing thirteen and a half stone, Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright was one of the most colourful of the Kelly country’s many brawlers. A relative of the Kellys by marriage, he had a fine eye for a horse and had done time for stealing some. He was a prominent sympathiser; after the shootings at Stringybark Creek, Wright and his brother were locked up for publicly goading the police.

  On Monday, two friends of the Kellys came into the township from Benalla, viz, Isaiah (or Wild) Wright and his brother, a deaf and dumb man. Isaiah Wright underwent imprisonment about a year ago for horse-stealing. He stated in the hotel bars that he meant to go out and join Kelly, and somewhat in bravo style warned one or two persons to stay in the township to-day unless they wanted to get shot. He said he believed Kelly would torture Kennedy, and he was only sorry for Scanlan. Though a good many of Wright’s remarks only amounted to his customary bluster, yet the police thought it prudent to lock both brothers up. They were about the streets when the party started, and had their horses ready, so it was not improbable that one of them meant to ride straight off with news to Kelly. The arrest of ‘Wild’ Wright was made so hurriedly that he had no time to resist.

  Imprisonment had no effect on Wright. He continued to intimidate and insult the police at every opportunity:

  There was considerable excitement in Mansfield last night, just as the people were going to church, occasioned by the freaks and threats of Wild Wright, a relative of the Kellys. A body of police, numbering about 13, including a black tracker, had just arrived, and some of them were standing at the corner of the street. Wright called them dogs, curs, and many other opprobrious names. He told them to follow him, and he would lead them to the Kellys, as he was going to join the gang. He was mounted on a good horse, and just keeping a short distance between himself and the police, he then asked the police to come out in the bush with him a little way and he would pot them. Four of the police made towards Wright, but he rode away out of their reach, and still threatened them if they would come a little distance out of the town. He said, ‘All the f***ing police in Mansfield can’t take me.’

  Sub-Inspector Pewtress then ordered two troopers to mount and arrest him. They pursued him for about two miles, but Wright was too well mounted, and gave the troopers the slip on the Benalla road. This morning Mr. Pewtress has sent a constable with a summons to Wright’s house for him to appear for using threatening language. It is to be hoped he will not be let off as easy as he was last time.

  Later the same month, Wright was again reported in the Mansfield pub:

  In the bar parlour of the principal hotel in Mansfield, this evening, Wild Wright said he had heard that Donnelly had turned policeman, and gone out with the traps after Kelly adding, if he had, he was a b***dy dog, and deserved shooting for so turning round; thus in the most open manner avowing his sympathy with the Kelly mob.

  Wright was among the first fourteen sympathisers to be arrested in January 1879. Although there was no evidence to hold them, under the provisions of the Felon’s Apprehension Act, they were continually remanded every seven days and would not be released for over three months. During the proceedings, Wild Wright addressed Superintendent Hare in court:

  No wonder you blush; you ought to be ashamed of your self’; and then turning to the Bench, ‘Your Worship said you give me fair play, but you are not giving me fair play now. I don’t know how some of these men stand it.’

  Mr Wyatt said that he had been misunderstood and misrepresented on the previous Saturday. What he had meant was that he would give Wright fair play, and thought it best to be remanded.

  Wright remained defiant, threatening the magistrate with violence when he was remanded yet again. He was not released until April, and was the last to be freed:

  When the Kelly sympathisers were brought up yesterday, and Superintendent Furnell asked for a further remand, Mr Foster said it was his duty to act independently, and to do that which to his conscience seemed just and legal, and he did not feel justified in granting a further remand; he should there-fore discharge the accused. The whole of the men were then formally discharged. Isaiah Wright was brought up last, when Mr Foster said:— ‘Isaiah Wright, your fellow prisoners have been discharged, and I propose to discharge you also. Several weeks since you, when in that dock, were foolish enough and cowardly enough to threaten me—foolish, because what you said could but prejudice your position; a coward, because you attempted to intimidate me when simply doing my duty, and that a very unpleasant one. My acts were official ones, and done in the interest of society, and it was a cowardly thing to make them the subject of personal enmity. It has been a subject of serious reflection with me whether I ought not to place you under substantial bonds to keep the peace, but this would probably cause your return to gaol, where you have so long been; and, trusting that the words were uttered in the heat of the moment, and that there is no ulterior intention of wrong, I discharge you.’ Wright said ‘Thank you,’ and left the court.

  Wild Wright missed no further opportunity to harass the police, even across the border into New South Wales after the Kellys robbed the Jerilderie bank.

  Wild Wright has been in Jerilderie since Monday and is still here. He has been locked up and fined 5s [5 shillings] for being drunk and disorderly. To-day he was behaving in a most disgraceful manner, calling out in the street, when there was no police within hearing, ‘Hurrah for the Kellys.’ He is accompanied by another man.

  Wright was one of the most important of Kelly’s people, assisting with the preparations for Glenrowan and narrowly avoiding being arrested in the aftermath as he passed ‘hot words’ with the police taking the wounded Ned away. He tried to convince the police to give up the charred remains of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart and helped out at their funerals. After becoming involved with the petition to save Kelly from execution, he returned to his horse-stealing ways for a while, serving a seven-year sentence for one such crime.

  He turned up again at Hartwood during the shearers’ strikes of the early 1890s, where according to the memories of Hugh Eastman, Wright approached him for a job of shearing. Eastman asked the well-mounted bushman a few questions:

  ‘Shearing anywhere this year?’

  ‘Shure, I never shore a sheep last year.’

  ‘Where were you shearing last year? You say you are a shearer.’

  ‘Shure, I never shore a sheep last year.’

  ‘What have you been doing in your spare time?’

  ‘I’ve been doing a lot of jail, I’m just after doing seven years for stealing a horse along with Jim Kelly.’* (Wild now provided some helpful advice. ‘If you are ever short of a horse, shake it on your own, don’t go with another man or you are sure to be lagged.’)

  ‘What is your name anyhow?’

  ‘You know my name right enough.’

  ‘No, you are a stranger to me.’

  ‘Well, I’m not woild at ’art, but they call me Woild Wright.’

  ‘The devil you are. I wish I’d known that before giving you the pen.’

  ‘Ah sure, you will not find me woild at arl.’

  (* Not the brother of Ned, another Jim Kelly)

  Wild Wright won the job and turned out to be ‘one of the best blade men’ Eastman had come across in a lifetime of sheep farming. He was still a prodigious drinker and still a show-off. Once while working for Eastman, Wright leapt onto the bare back of his horse, galloped straight at the shearer’s dining area then vaulted over the animal’s head to land on his feet inside. He sat down calmly to take his meal. Still ‘flash’.

  Wright then went to the Riverina, continuing his wild ways. He turned up at the home of another old Kelly country mate, ‘Bricky’ Williamson, in Coolamon (New South Wales) around 1901, then disappeared. He died, probably in the Northern Territory in 1911. Or perhaps, as Eastman records:

  Years afterwards, in the back country, a derelict, all broken up, was buried by the police on the roadside where he fell—the end of a queer misfit.

  10

  The chil
d in the bush

  Captain Cook

  Broke his hook

  Fishing for Australia,

  Captain Cook wrote a book

  All about Australia.

  Colonial children’s rhyme

  THE LIVES OF colonial children were sometimes as hard as those of their parents. Often left to themselves, children developed their own ways to entertain themselves based on the venerable traditions of playing improvised games of chasing, hiding and running. Where there were any toys, they were few in number and so storytelling and, for younger children, nursery rhymes were important ways to learn and be entertained. Sadly, children were also vulnerable to the dangers of pioneering the bush.

  The beanstalk in the bush

  In the era before film, radio and television, people needed to entertain themselves. Much of this took place within the family and usually involved playing parlour games like charades, singing together and telling stories. So-called ‘fairy tales’ were popular, both with adults and children, to whom they were often told at bedtime. This very early version of the classic story about the naïve boy and his magic bean was told to a child in Sydney around 1860. Like many ‘fairy’ tales, there are no fairies in it.

  There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white. And all they had to live on was the milk the cow gave every morning, which they carried to the market and sold. But one morning Milky-white gave no milk, and they didn’t know what to do.

  ‘What shall we do, what shall we do?’ said the widow, wringing her hands.

  ‘Cheer up, mother, I’ll go and get work somewhere,’ said Jack.