Richard Hill (1829-1866) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

Richard "Dick" Hill aka Burgess

Born 14 Feb 1829 in London, England, United Kingdom

Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]

[sibling(s) unknown]

[spouse(s) unknown]

[children unknown]

Died 5 Oct 1866 at age 37 in Nelson, New Zealand

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Australian Bushrangers

Biography

Born Richard Hill, in 1829. He arrived in Dunedin in 1862. He passed away in 1866. Richard Burgess, also known as Richard Miller,^[1] was born in the West End of London, England, on 14 February 1829, the illegitimate son of a lady's maid and 'some one connected with the Horse-guards'. When his father disappeared, his mother moved in straitened circumstances to the East End. Difficulties at home and at school forced him to join the 'City Arabs' at the age of 14. He was soon gaoled and flogged for pickpocketing. By 16 he had graduated to housebreaking, and was sentenced to 15 years' transportation. After 20 months' solitary he was shipped to Melbourne, arriving in September 1847. His name or alias has not been found in the list for the convict ship he claimed to arrive on, the Joseph Somes but interestingly, the prison poet, Owen Suffolk, was a fellow passenger. Released on conditional pardon (that is, unable to return home until the expiration of his sentence), Dick Hill, as he was then known, briefly worked as a stonemason, but soon resumed a life of crime. His offences included robbery, forgery, rustling and murder. The 'smart dapper little fellow' (5 feet and 4½ inches, fresh complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes, according to a 'wanted' poster) found easy pickings among the Victorian goldfield diggers. He spent the proceeds on gambling, liquor and women. Sentenced in 1852 to 10 years for a robbery of which he always maintained he was innocent, he experienced the brutality of Melbourne gaol and the prison hulks. He twice tried to escape from those 'floating hells of misery', the second time in an 1856 bid led by the infamous bushranger 'Captain Melville' (Frank McCullum). Three people died, including a policeman, but the nine defendants at the murder trial, including Hill, escaped hanging on technicalities.

Within a month of his early release in 1859, on a ticket of leave, Dick Hill was arrested again for armed robbery. His use of an alias enabled him to disguise his past and he received a light sentence. In October 1861 he was discharged from Pentridge stockade. To escape police vigilance, in January 1862 he departed for the Otago goldfields. Here he teamed up with various Australian colleagues and began to prey upon the miners. His closest mate was a man he had known in Pentridge, Thomas Kelly (alias Noon).

When in March three policemen attempted to bring Burgess (as he was known most of his time in New Zealand) and Kelly in for questioning at the diggings town of Weatherstons, the two escaped amid police gunfire. On their subsequent capture they were charged with armed resistance to the law, although they swore that Kelly's gun had gone off only once, accidentally. Burgess and Kelly received three years' hard labour for the firing charges and six months for possessing a stolen weapon. Even some of their digger victims were uneasy about these developments, since the evidence for any firing at the police was rather flimsy. Burgess vowed to take revenge on society when he was released.

After a failed escape attempt Burgess 'was considered the ringleader in every refractory outbreak' in Dunedin gaol. Tighter discipline was introduced, 'mutiny' broke out, and Burgess was lashed. He is said to have determined then that he would take a life for every lash received. Burgess and Kelly were released on 11 September 1865 and soon left town to escape close police observation. The Otago police escorted them both from Dunedin to the provincial border. There they eluded the Canterbury police and made their way to Hokitika. The local police had insufficient resources to place them under surveillance, so the pair, with others, resumed a roving life of crime on the West Coast goldfields. In the 'gangs' which formed for specific 'jobs', Burgess was always the leader.

In Hokitika Burgess indulged in 'gambling and other sinful excesses', and lived with a young woman called Carrie, whom he left when she became pregnant. 'My poor bird saw me occasionally when she ever pleaded for me to set her free from her shame', Burgess confessed later. From the end of April, when Burgess met up with former publican and prizefighter Joseph ('Flash Tom') Sullivan, who had just arrived from Victoria, his criminal activities increased. The West Canterbury police headquarters at Hokitika were twice robbed to procure arms and police uniforms for a bank robbery at Okarito. Burgess and Kelly were acquitted on charges relating to this by a pre-emptive strategy which included perjured evidence by Sullivan. To escape surveillance, the threesome went north to Greymouth on 26 May. Two days later a young surveyor, George Dobson, mistaken for gold buyer E. B. Fox, was held up and then strangled. It is not known which members of the gang committed this crime; Burgess and Sullivan later blamed each other.

The gang made another attempt to waylay and murder Fox and a banking associate, but Inspector W. H. James and a detachment of constables travelled with the gold buyers, disguised as diggers. Recognising them, Burgess and his companions remained hidden in the bush. James, who was unaware of Dobson's murder, visited Burgess and told him to leave the district. Burgess had already sent for a professional 'fence', William (alias Philip) Levy, to dispose of the proceeds of a planned bank robbery at the Buller, and so in early June Burgess, Levy, Kelly and Sullivan went by the steamer Wallaby to the Nelson South-West goldfields.

As there proved to be no bank at the declining Buller diggings, the four men decided to go to Picton (where there were further opportunities for crime) and then to Australia. Almost destitute, they disembarked at Nelson and walked the rugged, isolated Maungatapu track to Marlborough. While they were encamped at Canvastown, Levy reconnoitred the Wakamarina goldfield. At Deep Creek he learnt that an old acquaintance, Felix Mathieu, now a local publican and storekeeper, was about to depart with two other businessmen and a miner to investigate prospects on the West Canterbury goldfields. Burgess had already insisted that the gang should return to Nelson and catch a steamer, as they drew attention to themselves travelling on foot. On the way, he now decided, the party from Deep Creek, which would be carrying money and gold, would be waylaid.

According to Burgess, Kelly refused to participate in any hold-up and Levy was not told about it: the pair travelled on ahead. In Sullivan's version the whole gang was involved. There is evidence to support both versions; the only certainty is that Burgess was involved, by his own admission. En route they met an old miner, James Battle, who became suspicious of their intentions. He was robbed of his £3 17s., throttled to death by Burgess, and buried. Then, on 13 June, the Mathieu party was 'stuck up' and robbed of some £300 in gold dust and notes. To remove all witnesses James Dudley was strangled, Mathieu shot and then knifed, and John Kempthorne and American digger James de Pontius shot. De Pontius was buried so that the police would think, if the other bodies were found, that he had murdered his travelling companions and fled.

In Nelson the gang spent money freely while awaiting a steamer, not realising that the travellers had been missed. Before long they were arrested on suspicion of the murders. After seeing a reward poster offering a free pardon for any accomplice not specifically involved in the murders, Sullivan turned Queen's evidence and directed search parties to the bodies. However, he had not realised that the pardon applied only to the Mathieu party murders; he would eventually be tried and convicted for Battle's murder.

The news of the murders had caused a sensation, and consequently the trial excited intense public interest. In both the lower and Supreme Court hearings Burgess and Kelly represented themselves. Burgess was determined to establish Sullivan as his sole accomplice in the Maungatapu murders and as the murderer of Dobson. On 9 August he read out for five hours 'The confession of Burgess, the murderer', in which he detailed many crimes and exonerated Kelly, Levy and others implicated by Sullivan. Although fully acknowledging his own guilt, on 12 September Burgess stated, 'for the sake of form I shall plead Not Guilty'. This 'most extraordinary' proceeding, said the judge, 'according to all my experience, is a position unparalleled in the history of British trials.' In prison, meanwhile, Burgess had expanded his written 'confessions' into a full-scale autobiography, the publication of which was banned for fear of undermining public morality.

During the trial Dick Burgess castigated himself extravagantly, claiming conversion to belief in God. 'I stand here,' he said, 'an actual murderer, and I state this not from vainglory…but because I wish to clear the innocent men who are accused of the murders which I and the villain Sullivan committed.' His story was supported by his fellow accused, and the Crown acknowledged that Sullivan had previously lied and perjured himself. But the judge, Alexander Johnston, was hostile to Burgess, describing him as an 'arch plotter' and a 'cruel assassin' who possessed a 'braggard vanity'. The jury of course found Burgess guilty, along with Kelly and Levy. The judge, in pronouncing the death sentence, lectured Burgess at length for being 'one of the wickedest of men, one without any kindly feeling for your fellows', a man who had shown 'some of the cunning of the fox and a little more than the blood-thirstiness of the wolf'. Burgess, at first 'nonchalant' and then 'weeping, but with a steady voice', responded: 'I have deserved my sentence, and I receive it with humility.'

Burgess's theatrical conduct in court was matched by his performance on the day of execution. After cheerfully entering the prison yard, he declared that 'he had no more fear of death than he had of going to a wedding,' and thanked various officials in attendance. He then bounded up the scaffold steps, and choosing the centre rope kissed it, 'saying that he greeted it as a prelude to Heaven'. Meanwhile Kelly hysterically and Levy calmly protested their innocence. Nelson's first executions occurred at 8.30 a.m. on 5 October 1866.

Moulds for casts of the three heads were taken, before the necks were dissected in the interests of medical science. The bodies were buried in the gaol yard; mystery surrounds their fate after they were disinterred many years later. Almost immediately after the executions there was speculation that Burgess might have been telling the truth about the role of Kelly and Levy, and some reluctant admiration that Burgess had deliberately set out to get himself hanged in the cause of 'mateship'. A prominent phrenologist, A. S. Hamilton, who had visited Burgess's cell, gave a lecture in which he expressed admiration for the man's virtues but pity that 'so much daring, expertness and ability should have been lost to society by being wrongly directed.' Few would have disagreed with his declaration that Dick Burgess had 'no rival, either in the magnitude of his crimes, or in the part he acted in his last hour upon earth.'

An alternative biography, written 54 years later
"CONVICT DAYS" Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA.) 16 December 1911

CONVICT DAYS.

A Life of Crime—From the Cradle to the Scaffold—Murderer's Confession.

(By Dave Clinton)
A good beginning in this life redounds to one's Advantage rightly applied. In reading these memoirs it will plainly be seen that divergence from the paths of honesty must lead to misery, the success and prosperity of crime ever being of short duration, ending in punishment, disgrace, and often an ignominious death upon the scaffold. The story concerns the career of Richard Burgess, who was hanged at Nelson, New Zealand, on October 5th 1866. The notorious highwayman and murderer left behind him the following account; written by himself, just before his execution:—

EARLY LIFE.

"I was born in the year of grace 1829, February 14, so at the present time I am in my 38th year. I first saw the light at Hatton Gardens, at the west-end of London, and my knowledge is limited, to my maternal parent. My father I never knew; that is to say, I was not brought up under his care, and nurture. All I learnt was from my poor, dear mother. She was a lady's maid in the family of Lord Grosvenor. While there she fell a victim to the blandishments of an officer in the Horse Guards. I was the fruit of her betrayal by a wretch worse than myself, in that he neglected her in after life. My end is near, for as the grim reaper, Death, approaches, I sit in the condemned cell. My earliest recollections are very vivid, so that the whole of my wasted life lies before me, like a map of the globe. I grew till I attained the age of eight or nine. All these years I knew, but a mother's care. I was now of an age sufficient to know right from wrong, and was very observant of all that passed. I used to notice my poor old mother give vent to her tears in the presence of a male friend. One day while she was crying I ventured to ask her who he was that made her cry, when I was subjected to a fondling, and told that he was my father. His visits were very few. I remember on one occasion he took me in his arms and kissed me, and told me to be a good boy to my mother; that was the only paternal embrace, to my knowledge, I ever received from the author of my birth. So you may say that I never knew a father's care or love. At this time my maternal parent was very much respected by all who knew her. I trust she was to the end of her days. God bless her. Her education was very superior to that of her neighbors. She brought me up in the love and fear of God, in her simple way, as far as causing me to attend a place of worship, that being the acme of her ideas of religion. She had an income in her own right which she received from an aged aunt, prior to my birth. With this she maintained herself, and among her friends passed as a widow. For such she was to all intents and purposes, and a more kindhearted or abstemious woman never lived.

HIS MOTHER REMARRIES.

I was 12 years of age when we removed to the east end of London to a place called Milk street, Commercial road. There I attended school until my unruly conduct caused my expulsion therefrom. This incident nearly broke my poor old parent's heart. Her kindness and over indulgence were beginning to bear fruit already, and that she could see. About this time my mother became acquainted with a Mr. Watson. He was a master cabinet maker, a widower, and had four children. After a short courtship they were married, and a little time after I found home unbearable, owing to the harsh treatment of my stepfather and the tyranny of my half-brothers. My dear old mother had to look on and see her poor, neglected boy, as she used to call me, castigated for the least thing. I wore this treatment until I was nearly 14; then came to a resolutionto leave my no longer peaceful home. With this I removed to the Surrey side of the Thames. There I became acquainted, with youths more advanced in years than myself. They were city arabs. Their predatory acts were principally confined to picking women's pockets, and I soon acquired such proficiency that I was pronounced perfect, until one evening at the Olympic Theatre my first mishap befel me. I was in the lobby when an old lady passed to go to her carriage. I followed her out, but being watched by A detective (unknown to me) I was taken in the very act off robbing her. But that she begged very hard for me I should have been transported, instead of which I received six month's imprisonment, to be flogged in and out by the birch. On regaining my liberty I found the best friend I had in the world, my mother, waiting for me as I passed through the prison gates. I soon returned to my evil ways and companions in crime, for the dissolute life I led prior to my incarceration suited my vicious ideas of life.

BECOMES A HOUSEBREAKER.

"I soon became so perfect in my pursuit of crime that besides following the profession of pickpocket I added that of a housebreaker. At this time I had attained the age of 16. I remember having the last interview with my beloved mother. It was in the New Model Prison. I and my companions, after robbing a gentleman's villa at Clapham, were arrested; the stolen property was traced to us, which led to the conviction. We were tried at the Old Bailey, and received 35 years' transportation. Previous to leaving my native land for ever my poor mother visited me. The meeting was an awful one; she, being so delicate of constitution, could not bring herself to battle with my misfortune, but made it her own, at the cost of her entire prostration of mind, and body. When she recovered herself it was not bitter words of reproach she upbraided me with to make my position worse; no, but words of gentle import, as she was ever wont to use towards her reprobate of a son, for she was the best of mothers. The interview was the last we had on earth, and her prophetic, words have been realised. These were her parting words with our hands clasped in each other:— "Good-bye, son; you have been hitherto a bad boy, and now I am about to lose you for ever, for we shall never meet again. God protect you." We parted. She left with me the little presents she brought—a beautiful Bible and a portion of her hair. Thus I took my last farewell of the most loving mother, and was about to leave my native land never to see it more.

ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA.

I arrived at Melbourne by the ship Joseph Somes in the year 1847, and obtained a conditional pardon, specifying that I was free, but not to return to the United Kingdom till the expiration of my sentence. For a time I worked honestly for a living. When the gold diggings broke out I went to Ballarat. There I became acquainted with a young man named Keefe, and we became mates. One evening a man came to our tent and told us he wanted his mates robbed. (This was no infrequent occurrence for men were digging together who had not seen each other pievious to their meeting on the diggings.) He told us they had a good bit of gold besides money, and they were all drinking, so he would go and join them and get drunk with them. 'You will find the bulk of the gold in a bucket of water under the bed,' he said, 'but mind how you get it, for most of them are Yankees and are armed.' We delayed our visit till the night got advanced. We found them asleep and by each man's side there was a gun or pistol. Before proceeding to rob them we removed these weapons, on accomplishing which we searched every man's person and took therefrom what money and gold they had. Nor did we forget the bucket, where the main part of the gold was to be found. Altogether we made a very considerable haul. Things continued like this for some timet but our ill-gotten gains did us no good as we lost them quickly at the gambling tables. At Ballarat gold was easily obtained. Had I, like the majority, gone digging I should probably have avoided the fate that awaits me. I will now reveal a terrible crime

Murder more foul was never known,
No time, for prayer or mercy shown,
To him these demons slew.

"My mate and I next meditated robbing a Mr. Hewitt, a storekeeper, who went regularly from Ballarat to Melbourne once a month, taking with him a large quantity of gold. The morning he started we let him pass us, for he had a distance of 60 miles, to go. After he had been gone about an hour we mounted our horses, and they being good ones we soon overtook him. It was just the other side of Pike's Station. We adjusted our falls of black crape and stopped him. We took the horse out and tied him up. Mr. Hewitt we also tied to the wheel. On searching him we found some money, but not much. We asked him what he had on the cart, and he replied, with tears in his eyes, 'My all'. On looking we found a bag containing (he told us) 43 pounds weight of gold, and he hoped we would not take all this. We did so, however, and mounted our horses and left him. On leaving he remarked—"I know you, and when I get loose I'll raise the country, and I will have you arrested." Fatal words for him were these. We rode about 200 yards from him. When my companion observed. 'He has recognised us.' We reasoned if our surmise was correct he would be as good his his word and probably succeed in arresting us. So we came to the decision of preventing him from doing us any harm. We returned, put the horse to and drove our victim over to a place called Deep Creek. There I shot him and threw into a hole his body. At the time of a freshet the creek was full of water, but at that season it was dry. I covered the body up with the debris around the spot. We drove the horse some two or three miles further on, then ran the cart into a water hole, and let the horse loose. After this deed was effected we rode on to Melbourne, which was reached in about two hours. There was no great outcry about the murdered man. In these, which I may call the dark days of Victoria, there was very little enquiry made for anybody who should have disappeared suddenly.

ACCUSED OF ROBBERY.

"I now for a time settled in Melbourne. Going home one night rather late I saw a man being violently robbed by two others. I witnessed the whole of it because I knew the assailants. I left the locality of the robbery, and had not gone far when I was confronted by the detectives. While having a confab with them the man I saw being robbed came by and took us for the same men who had maltreated him just before. He said, 'They might have robbed me with less violence.' The detectives said 'When did that happen?' He replied. 'Not long ago.' At this I turned to proceed on my way when I was prevented from going. This led to an altercation. The detectives said they would stick to me as one of the thieves. I had no arms but a whip, which I drew and struck one of them over the head. In doing this I received a similar blow that laid me prostrate. In consequence of any offering this resistance it led to my being suspected as the real party implicated in the robbery. I was taken to the lockup, and the next day the detectives had so prevailed on the man that he came forward without any hesitation and said I was one of his assailants. It was a crime of which, God knows, I was innocent. I was committed for trial and eventually received a sentence of 10 years for this offence, the first three in irons.

BURGESS' CAREER TEMPORARILY CLOSED.

Burgess' career was thus brought to a close for a time. Six weeks after sentence he received 50 lashes for using threatening language to one of the officers of the prison. Some months after this he received 100 lashes tor insubordination, also solitary confinement (one pound of bread per diem, water ad libitum— that was the meaning of solitary confinement). On December 15,1852, the hulk President was declared fit for the reception of prisoners. Burgess and 20 others were the first that were sent on board of her. The ship was about 900 tons. On the middle and lower decks there were 80 cells on each side, making 40 cells to each deck. These cells did not average 3 ft by 7 and all those who visited this hulk called it a floating hell of misery, torture, and crime. On June 21 Richard Burgess, together with others, was removed to the hulk Success, most of these prisoners being taken ashore to work during the day and returning to the Success to sleep at night. The bushranger Frank Melville (better known as Captain Melville) and Burgess were messmates and leaders in an attempted escape by the police pinnace. This ended in failure, Burgess receiving a bullet throagh the shoulder, and a young man of 26, named Owen Owens, was murdered by Stevens (a convict), killing him with a hammer, throwing the body overboard, remarking, "We are all hanged to a man, so rather than that I prefer this." He then, threw himself into the sea, thus rushing into the presence of his Maker, his hands wet with the blood of his fellowman. The recaptured convicts were fully committed for trial for the murder of Owen Owens. At the trial there was a general exposition of the treatment carried on at the whole of the establishments of the penal department since John Price had been in office. Prior to the trial Price visited the prisoners and told them they would all be hanged by the neck as sure as fate Melville said. "John, you will soon, follow." Melville and two more of his comrades were sentenced to death; they were the first three to be tried. The people of Melbourne could see that the whole nine would suffer, when through some technical point of law with respect to the warrants it appeared they were not in legal custody. This point of law resulted in an acquittal, and sentence against the others was not recorded.

DEATH OF PRICE.

John Price was a terror to all evildoers, but there is no doubt he far exceeded his duty, and his cruelty and tyranny brought about his own untimely end. He was brutally murdered on March 26, 1857, receiving a fearful blow in the head from a shovel, besides being jumped on by several men. Wilson, one of the warders, attempted to go to the assistance of Mr. Price, but was at once knocked down and stunned. John Price died in great agony the following day at 4 o'clock at the house of Dr. Wilkins, to which he had been removed. Six men were executed for the murder of Price, viz., Thomas Molony, a native of Tipperary, a butcher by trade; John Chesley, born 1825 at Oxford, a carpenter, transported twice from England to the colonies; Richard Bryant, born in Dublin, by trade a sawyer; Thomas Williams, native of Manchester, born 1825, a carpenter by trade. The principal perpetrator of Price's murder, arrived by the convict ship Constant to Van Diemen's Land in the year 1815. He was convicted in Victoria in 1852 for highway robbery, three distinct charges having been proved against him. He received a sentence of 30 years on the roads of the colony, the first two in irons. William Brown was born in 1835 in Glasgow and was a sailor. He was convicted on June 9, 1853, and was serving 22 years on two charges of highway robbery under arms. Francis Brannagin, alias Frank Bragan, was born in 1814 at Bir, Ireland, laborer. He was a man of great activity and daringly courageous. He arrived per Tortoise in Van Dieman's Land in 1842 under a sentence of 14 years. Arrived in Melbourne by ship Mary in 1854. Committed for trial at Maryborough November, 1854, on four charges of highway robbery. When en route to Castlemaine for trial he broke out of the Tarrangower lockup on December 7 along with another prisoner (Podgy Burton). The police sentry firing at them captured Podgy, Brannagin escaping. A reward of £100 was offered by the Government for his arrest, which (after he had committed several desperate road robberies) was accomplished by the police in Bullarook Forest, near Ballarat, on April 14, 1855. He had formed a gang and after a desperate resistance was captured with five others. So was John Price avenged, his murderers expiating their crimes and the gallows claiming its own. Shortly after this the hulks were broken up and Burgess was sent to the Collingwood Stockade to finish the remainder of his term. He had served nearly six and a half years. Five years was the stipulated time for a 10 years' man with good conduct, but he did not come under this regulation through misbehavior. When Mr. Champ took charge every man then knew how long he had to serve before taking up his indulgence in the form of a ticket of leave for the remainder of the time not completed. At last Burgess received the welcome news that the prison gates were open for him to walk out. He was once more a free man.

FREE ONCE MORE.

CONFESSION CONTINUED.
"Oh, how I drank the air and revelled in the sunshine, each blade of grass, each drop of dew, revealed to me the blessing that I was free! free! Harold Hawk.
Burgess continued:—"In the year 1859 I was again at liberty. With me left a young man who was not so far advanced in crime as myself, but still a willing follower therein, so previous to my leaving, it was arranged that I was to take him witth me. We swagged it as far as Echuca, on the River Murray. Tired of walking, I said, "Let's get out on the road, and the first horseman that comes along we will stop, and thus get horses.' A trooper, splendidly mounted, came up. I asked him where he was going. He resented my questioning, and when I bid him alight from his horse, he flew to his pistols, but was too late. I had him covered, and that he saw. When my comrade came to the scene he took hold of the horse by the head. The trooper still refused to get off. I told him the result of his non-compliance. 'Well' he replied, 'if you shoot me I will die in my saddle, for I have been 18 years in the service, and was never unhorsed yet. I could never survive the disgrace attached to it!' Here was a state of things.' What was to be done? It was no use taking his life. The one horse was as bad as none for two men. Another thing; I admired the courage of the man, so I let him pass, with his salutation that I was a Briton and no mistake.' I bid him proceed about his business. On viewing this man's conduct I believe there would be very little bushranging if the service had such officers as he, because bushrangers would then have men opposed to them as courageous as themselves.

OFF TO NEW ZEALAND.

"Having acquired a considerable sum through a number of robberies too numerous to particularise, I resolved to try my luck in New Zealand, and see what I could do at the Otago diggings, so I shipped by the Asa Elridge for Dunedin in the year 1862. I had been then fourteen years in the colonies, out of which I had been an inmate of a prison and companion of woe and misery for over eleven years. I am now seeking for the mercy of God for what I have done. You, who are matured in crime, take warning by me, and flee from it as from a poisonous serpent. Don't be led by the fascination of crime, which urges its votaries on, persuading them it is a jovial life. Avoid, I say, its allurements, because the end of it is misery, here, and eternal condemnation hereafter. Don't make light of my advice, because it is given from a condemned cell by one who is about to leave the world. Don't say, "O the canting parson's got hold, of him, and he was induced through the fearful punishment they conjured up to frighten him to confess his sins." Throw off such thoughts, if entertained as unworthy of you and unjust to me. I am well known among the sinful class as one who, while living, never injured his fellow in crime, and who will make his exit from this world not as a graven coward, but as a man, and I trust a Christian one; I look upon my past life as unworthy of me."

CAREER IN NEW ZEALAND

Richard Burgess and his mate, Thomas Noon, alias Kelly, arrived at Dunedin (N.Z.), only stopping there a few days, then leaving together for the Weatherstone diggings. There, after committing several robberies, they were at last arrested by Sergeant Trimble, Major Bracken and a posse of police, being surprised in a tent while sleeping. The owner of the tent, Dan Burns (better known as Deaf Dan) received three months for harboring Burgess and Kelly. The latter two received a sentence of three years in the Dunedin gaol. After serving this sentence they proceeded overland to Hokitika diggings, on the west coast of the middle island. A number of robberies occurred after their arrival. At Hokitika they renewed their acquaintance with Phillip Levy, whom they had known in Otago. Burgess also made the acquaintance of Joseph Thomas Sullivan, being introduced to him by Thomas Kelly, the latter having known Sullivan years before in Launceston, Tasmania. According to Burgess' confession Sullivan murdered the surveyor, young Mr. Dobson, eight miles from Greymouth, and buried the body, it being found scarcely one month after interment. The murder of Mr. Fox, the gold buyer, was contemplated, but owing to information given to the police by a man named Wilson he fortunately escaped the untimely end intended for him. Having been warned by the police to leave Greymouth, Burgess, Kelly, Levy, and Sullivan took passage by the Wallaby steamer which was bound for Nelson via the Buller. The four men went right through to Nelson. After remaining a few days they proceeded to Picton and from there to the Deep Creek, and it was between this place and Nelson on the mountains called the Maungatapu Ranges, that the following terrible murders were perpetrated.

DEMONS OF THE MAUNGATAPU MOUNTAINS.

On June 12,1866, four men named Felix Matthieu, John Kempthorne, James Dudley, and James de Pontius, left the Deep Creek diggings with the intention of going to Nelson and proceeding thence to the west coast. They had a pack horse with them to relieve themselves of the labor of carrying their swags. They were met by several persons on the road and were last seen alive a little way on the Nelson side of Franklin's Flat, where all traces of them had ceased. The absence of these four, unfortunate men, Kempthome and party, was first made known through a man named Henry Moller. Following, as he thought, at no great distance behind them, Moller was kept aware that they were about two miles in advance as far as Franklin's Flat by persons he met, but after this he lost all tidings of them, as they were not seen by the subsequent travellers he encountered. Following the route to Nelson and obtaining no news of his friends, he at once communicated with the authorities and stated his suspicions. The first search expedition left on June 18, 1866, and consisted of a party of police officers and Mr. Mabille, a surveyor. The search was directed along the neighborhood of the track between Nelson and the Pelorus Valley, and the searchers were joined in their labors by a party of men from Deep Creek, who were interested in the fate of their friends. The search for the missing then proved at that time unsuccessful, but the feeling that they had met with foul play was growing stronger and stronger in the minds of the people of Nelson.

ARREST OF THE "DEMONS."

On June 19 Phillip Levy was arrested at the Wakatu Hotel in Nelson on suspicion of having been implicated in some way with the loss of Mr. Kempthorne's party. He was recognised as one of the four men who stayed at Jervis' house, at Canvas Town (on the road to Deep Creek), and a short time afterwards the other three, Burgess, Kelly, and Sullivan, were all secured in the town, chiefly through the assistance rendered by Mr. Owens, hotelkeeper at Nelson. In the meantime public excitement had risen to the highest pitch. A second search party started out, and partial success at once rewarded their labors. They found the pack horse, shot through the head, together with the swags of the murdered men. The exertions of the search party were redoubled to find the bodies. Before the labors of the search party could be rewarded, however, affairs took another turn. On Thursday, June 28, JosephThomas Sullivan, the oldest of the four prisoners, availing himself of the offer made by his Excellency the Governor of a free pardon to any but the actual murderers, voluntarily confessed to his complicity in these awful deeds. At the same time he informed the police that a fifth murder, of which there was then not the slightest suspicion, had also been committed on the road.

STORY OF THE MURDERS.

The four miscreants, aware of Messrs Kempthorne, Matthieu, Dudley, and DePontius being on the way to Nelson, took up their positions on the road over the Mauagatapu range. Dividing themselves as the travellers, approached, two of them barred the latter's onward progress on the road and two placed themselves in the rear. The object was that when the travellers turned back on being surprised by seeing two armed men in their front they would find another armed party behind them. A more complete trap, in which to waylay travellers could not well be imagined. According to Sullivan's story, when the men were stopped and made secure they were marched into the bush on the upper side of the road by Levy, Burgess, and Kelly, while he (Sullivan) took charge of the horse. The latter he led some way into the bush in order to prevent it being described by passersby. Sullivan says he had no direct participation in the murders, but that he heard the discharge of six shots. After performing his part of the business., which was to guard the road, he was joined by his companions, who in the meantime had murdered the four men, shooting three and strangling the fourth with a scarf. By the account given Sullivan by his companions, one of the poor fellows was hard to kill, and three shots were fired at him. The horse was led for a quarter of a mile along the track, and then taken a short way down the side of the hill, shot and covered with boughs of trees and broken timber. The fifth man whom these monsters dispatched was named James Battle, or, as he was more commonly called "Old Jamie." His murder took place on the day preceding that on which the four others were slain. Three pounds and a little silver was the fruit of this coldblooded and villainous deed.

THE BODIES FOUND.

On the information of Sullivan the bodies were found. They were lying about 20 or 25 yards apart, and were about 250 yards from the track. The first one discovered was that of Felix Matthieu. His legs were strapped together and his hands tied by his side. On the left side of the body were two bullet wounds. A little further on lay the body of Dudley, who from all appearances had been strangled. Farther on still Kempthorne was found with a bullet through his head, entering at the right ear. Pontius' body was found hard by, with a shot through the side of his head. All the bodies were in such a state of preservation as to be easily identified. An immense concourse of people witnessed the burial of the murdered men, which took place on Sunday, July 1, at the cemetery on the Wakapuaka road. On Tuesday morning, July 3, the body of the old man James Battle, was found. It was brought into Nelson and deposited in the engine room at the Government buildings, awaiting inquest and burial. The funeral took plaoe on Wednesday, July 4. The grave where his four fellow sufferers were buried was again opened, and poor "old Jamie" rests side by side with those who fell by the same inhuman hands as himself.

TRIAL AND CONVICTION.

At the Criminal Sittings, Nelson, on Wednesday, September 12, 1866, Burgess, Kelly, and Levy were placed on their trial on the charge of wilful murder. Sullivan was accepted by the Crown as approver against them. Their trials lasted sevan days, and ended by the jury returning a verdict of guilty against them.

THE EXECUTIONS.

His Honor Mr. Justice Johnson passed sentence of death on the three. Burgess made a confession of his guilt, and tried to exonerate Kelly and Levy, saying that he and Sullivan were alone guilty of the actual murders. On the scaffold Burgess said that Levy and Kelly were morally guilty, as having been afterwards informed of the deed, but that they took no part in it, and that he and Sullivan were alone the perpetrators. He then shook hands with the officials, thanking them for the kindness they had shown him. Turning to the hangman he said "I am very sorry to see an old pal doing such dirty work, for I know you, Clark, in spite of your mask." Then he said, with much apparent satisfaction, "Now, Mr. Sheriff. I am ready. You can carry out the law," and with a firm and rapid step mounted the scaffold. Levy following quickly said, "Good-bye, Dick, I'll die on the right hand side of you."
But Kelly yelled, shrieked and had to be carried on to the drop, creating a dreadful scene, and exclaiming. "I pray you give me liberty to speak for a moment. I am in a Christian country. Will you allow me or not? I am innocent, so help me God." When the executioner was adjusting the rope he said, "Don't choke me that way. God bless me and all of you. I forgive you all." Levy then turned round and called out in a loud voice. "I am innocent." These were his last words. The Rev. Mr. Johnson was reading, the services beginning, I am the resurection and the life," while Kelly was still entreating to be allowed to speak. At the words "In the midst of life we are in death," the bolt was drawn, and the sudden twang of the ropes announced that justice had been done, that all was over, and that the wicked had ceased from troubling. Burgess and Levy seemed to die at once. They never showed the slightset motion, even of the muscles, but Kelly seemed to die hard, as the saying is, and it was thought necessary for the executioner to complete his odius duty by hanging on to his legs, and this was repeated more than once. The executions took place in the Nelson gaol, New Zealand, on October 5, 1866.

PREVIOUS HORRIBLE CRIMES.

Deeds of blood and horror such as those above narrated are crimes seldom perpetrated in any part of the world. From Great Britain we hear of murders shocking our sensibilities. From America, come crimes of road agents, train robbers, &c. The careers of Dunn, Gilbert, Ben Hall, Gardener, or of Dan Morgan, who was considered the archfiend among highway robbers, are tolerably well known. The crimes, of Rush, the Mannings, Courvoisier, Palmeer, and other poisoners are familiar to all old-time readers. But the Burgess-Kelly gang succeeded in leaving so horrible a record that it eclipses in vileness that of any others who have been convicted of crime or suffered on the gallows. A few more lines, written by Burgess a short time before the end, will provide a good moral lesson as they show the misery and ill- effects of crime.

BURGESS' LAST THOUGHTS.

"Shadows of my childhood days and memories of my dear old mother are fleeting before me as I sit in the condemned cell and reflect on my wicked, wasted, and misspent life. If I can atone a little by placing on paper my sad thoughts; if I only prevent even one misguided youth from following in crime's footsteps, I shall have done a little good. I now pen these lines in my endeavor to show misguided youth that they may avoid the pitfall of destruction while there is time. Avoid following a course of evil, for in the end you may become altogether such as I am. Look at the debauchery there is attendant on such a life. This, for the time being, is thought a gay and merry life. Sad delusion! Compare yourself with a menial that procures his bread by the sweat of his brow. You find he is far your superior in bodily health and social position. Criminals are all aliens to bliss of a domesticated life, and their lives are one continued series of trouble and discomfort. Granted you are successful for a season, before you taste the wages of a transgressor. When immured in the body of a gaol, then and then only then are you beginning to feel the bitterness of crime and ready at any moment to sacrifice your lives to regain what you have forfeited—your liberty. I am well-known among the majority of evildoers, and I tell you all that had I the opportunity I should beat a retreat and gain my livelihood by honest means. Look at the tradesman, surrounded by his youthful progeny that gladden his heart to behold: his cheering helpmate by his side to attend on his every want. Where are your children and partner to welcome your return? Alas, the latter is some poor fallen sister, steeped in vice as bad as yourself. Oh! if you could see the solid comforts in pursuing an honest and upright course you would embrace it without delay. A life of crime is a life of untold misery. I must bid you all farewell, for I shall shortly go the way of the wicked. I hope you will all take warning by me and let not my fate be yours. May God forgive me. People of New Zealand, pray for me.— RICHARD BURGESS. Nelson Gaol, September, 1866."^[2]