Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), Saturday 7 August 1880, page 5


CONSTABLE M‘INTYRE’S EVIDENCE.

Constable M‘Intyre was then called. Before this, on the application of Mr. Gaunson, all witnesses had been ordered out of the court. M‘Intyre stated that on the 25th of October, 1878, he, with Constables Lonergan and Scanlan, under charge of Sergeant Kennedy, proceeded to the Wombat Ranges in search of Edward and Daniel Kelly, the former of whom was now in the dock, warrants being issued for their arrest. They camped at the Wombat Ranges on an open about an acre or two in extent. Lonergan and Scanlan and himself were armed with revolvers each, and a double barrelled fowling piece. Nothing occurred that day. In the morning, about 6 o’clock, Kennedy and Scanlan left the camp, and during the day witness was en-gaged in rigging up a camp, while Loner-

gan was looking after the horses and reading a book. In the course of the day Loner-gan called the attention of witness to a noise, and witness went to see what it was. He thought it was a wombat, but could not find out, and, during the time he was absent, he fired several shots from his fowling piece. After he went back he and Lonergan made a big fire for the purpose of guiding Kennedy and Scanlan home in case they got bushed. It was about 20 yards from the tent, and they had to carry the wood some distance, but about 10 minutes to 5 o’clock witness went to the tent and got a billy of tea. After this was made Lonergan was standing on the opposite side of the fire, when witness sud-denly heard some voices calling out, “Bail up. Hold up your hands.” He quickly turned round, and saw four men, each armed with guns, and each gun pointing in the direction of Lonergan or himself. He noticed the man on the right of the party particularly, and saw that his weapon was in a fair line for his (witness’s) chest. M‘Intyre continued : As soon as I saw this I put my arms out horizontally. I was unarmed at the time. Immediately afterwards I saw the same man I had noticed change the direction of his gun and fire. He fired at Lonergan, who was then about 10 or 12 feet from me. I heard Loner-gan fall immediately after the shot. He had gone about four or five steps before he fell. I then heard him breathing heavily and strenuously. The man to the right of the four men was the prisoner before the court. At the time he fired the shot the other men were in a line with him, and about two or three yards apart. As soon as Lonergan fell the prisoner threw his gun into his left hand, put his right hand behind his back, and pulled out a revolver, and cried to me, “Keep your hands up — keep them up.” I was unarmed, my revolver and fowling-piece being in the tent. After the prisoner drew the revolver, he and three others rushed up to where I was standing, and stood at a distance of about three yards from me ; the three others covered my chest with guns, and the prisoner with a revolver. I kept my hands up all the time. The prisoner said to me, “Have you any firearms ?” I replied “I have not.”

Before this, Lonergan had been struggling on the grass, plunging on the ground very heavily ; but about this time he ceased to breathe. Lonergan was about 10 yards from me at the time, and the prisoner was also the same distance from him. I heard Lonergan say, “Oh, Christ, I’m shot.” The prisoner was within hearing distance. Lonergan ceased struggling in about half a minute. A few minutes after I saw Lonergan stretched out and motionless. I saw him dead before I left. When the prisoner asked me if I had any firearms I said, “I had not.” He then asked, “Where is your revolver.” I said, “At the tent.” He said to his mates, “Keep him covered, lads,” and searched me for firearms. They did keep me covered. In searching me, he passed his hand under my coat and down my trousers, but did not find anything. He then jumped across the log to where Lonergan was lying. He remained away a moment, and came back with Lonergan’s revolver in his hand. I was under cover of three other men all the time. When prisoner came back he said, “What a pity that man tried to get away !” One of the others said that “he was a plucky fellow ; did you see how he caught at his re-volver ?” It was Daniel Kelly who said this. He moved his right hand spasmodically at his revolver at the time. The prisoner then went over to the tent, and the other three lowered their firearms when prisoner came back from the body of Lonergan, but still had them pointed in the direction of me. When the prisoner came back from the tent, he had my revolver, which had been hanging up in the tent. He told his mates then to let me go. I remained standing where I was, and the others went ov«r to the tent. They all went into the tent, and the prisoner’s brother, Daniel Kelly, came back with a pair of handcuffs. He said, “We will put these upon the ——.” (referring to the handcuffs). I appealed to the prisoner, saying, “What is the use of putting these on me, how can I get away while you are all armed the way you are ?” He said to Daniel Kelly, “All right, don’t put them on ; this (tapping his rifle) is better than hand-cuffs. Don’t try and go away, because if you do I’ll shoot you, if I had to track you to the police station and shoot you there.” Daniel Kelly said to this: “The b—— would soon put them on us if they had us.” The whole of them then went

to the tent, leaving me near the fire ; and they called me over to the tent. I knew Edward and Daniel Kelly from the photographs and descriptions I had. I did not know the other two. When I got to the tent prisoner was sitting down, with a gun across his knee, and the others were in the tent. The prisoner said, “That is a d—— d curious old gun for a man to carry about the country with him.” I said, “Perhaps it is better than it looks.” The pri-soner replied, “You might say that. I’ll back it against any gun in the country. I can shoot a kangaroo at 100 yards every shot with it.” It was an old shot-barrelled gun. From its appear-ance I took it to be a rifle. The stock and the barrel were tied together with a waxed string for about 3in or 4in from the lock. Pri-soner said, “Who’s that over there ?” and

he moved in the direction of Lonergan. I said that it was Lonergan. He said, “No, that is not Lonergan ; I know Lonergan well.” I said, “It is Lonergan !” He replied, “I am glad of that, for the b— gave me a hiding in Benalla once.” Daniel Kelly said, “Well, that b—— will never lock any more of us up.” Neither of the other two said anything about Lonergan. I have since seen the dead body of Joseph Byrne, and identified it as one of the four. I had made some tea, and Byrne, taking a pannikin, said, “Here, mate, have a drink of tea.” This was before they tasted it. I drank some, and then they took some, but before they did so the prisoner said, “Is there any poison about him ?” I said, “No ; why should we have poison.” While the other three were having something to eat and some tea, the prisoner took our fowling pieces, and drew the charges, which were cartridges. The fowling piece was a breechloader, with two car-tridges, and after taking out the shot replaced it with bullets, which he took from his trousers pocket. Having reloaded in this manner, he handed the gun to Byrne, and said, “Here, you take this, give me yours.” Byrne’s gun was not rifled. Prisoner said, referring to his own gun, “There is one of these for you, if you do not obey me.” He had two guns at the time. He said to me, “Do you smoke, mate ?” I said “Yes,” and

he replied, “Well, light your pipe and have a smoke.” Byrne smoked, and prisoner also asked me for tobacco. All this took from 10 to 15 minutes. They kept possession of the guns all this time. At the end of this time the prisoner said, “That will do, take your places lads.” The prisoner went over to the trees, concealing himself, and taking the two guns with him. Hart remained in the tent, and Byrne and Dan Kelly went into a quantity of spear grass, about five feet high, growing to the south of the open, and that was the place they first appeared from. I lost sight of Dan Kelly and Byrne in the spear grass. I was left at the tent at first, but immediately after the prisoner had concealed himself behind the logs near the fire, he called me over to the opposite side of the log where he was concealed, and said, “You stand there !” I went to the place he indicated. The log was between us at the time, and was about three feet thick. Prisoner was completely con-cealed at the time, and I was standing in the open. He was armed with two guns and a revolver, and I was unarmed. Prisoner had a conversation with me at that time commencing — “Who showed you this place ?” I replied, “No one showed it to us ; it is well known to all the people in Beechworth.” He said, “How did you come here ?” I said, “We crossed Hol-land’s Creek, and followed the blazed line.” He next asked, “Who are you, and what brought you here ?” I answered, “You know quite well who we are.” He said, “I suppose you came after me ?” I said, “No, I don’t know that we did come after you.” He asked, “Well, you came after Ned Kelly, I suppose ?” I said, “We did come after Ned Kelly.” He said, “You b—— come to shoot me, I suppose.” I said, “We came to apprehend, not shoot you.” He then asked, “Then why did you bring so many firearms and so much ammunition.” To this I replied that “We only brought them to shoot kangaroo.”

He asked, “Who was that shooting down the creek to-day ?” I told him I had been shooting at parrots, and he said it was very strange ; did we not know they were there ? I said, “No ; we thought they were 10 miles away,” at the same time pointing in the direction of Greta. Prior to this he had said to me, “Where are the others ?” and I replied that they were out. He then asked me whether they would be back thrat night, and I said I did not think so, I was afraid they had got bushed. Prisoner inquired in what direction they had gone, and I pointed to the north-west, in the direction of Benalla. Prisoner said, “That is very strange, they may never come back ; but there is a good man down the creek, and if they fall in with him you will never see them again.” He then asked the names and stations of the two men away. I told him Ser-geant Kennedy, of Mansfield, and constable Scanlan, of Benalla. He said, “I have never seen or heard of Kennedy, but believe that Scan-lan was a flash b——.” I asked what he in-tended doing with them, saying "Surely he did not intend to shoot them in cold blood.” He said he liked a game man, and would never shoot a man who surrendered. I said, “Are you going to shoot me ?” He said “No, I could have shot you easily an hour ago, when you were sitting on that log,” at the same time pointing to where I had been sitting. Some time previously he also said, “At first I thought you were Flood, but it is a good job you are not, for if you were, I would not shoot you, but would toast you on that fire. There are four men in the police force I would roast ; they are Fitzpatrick, Flood, Strachan, and Steele. Flood has been blowing that he would take me single-handed.” He asked me how the men were armed. I told him very meagrely, and he asked what I meant by that, and had they got their revolvers ? I told him they had ; and he asked then if they had not got a rifle. I hesitated at tbe moment, and Kelly said, “Now, tell the truth; because if I find you out in a lie, I will put a hole through you.” I then told them that the men had a rifle, and they asked if it was not a breechloader. I said it was ; and he replied, “That looks as it you came out to shoot us.” I told him we were not sent out to shoot people, and he could not blame men because they were sent out to do a certain duty. He asked, “Do you know what became of the Sydney man.” I replied that he was shot by the police. I knew that be referred to the case

of sergeant Wallings. He said: “Yes, and if the police shot him, they shot the wrong man. I suppose some of you b—— will be shooting me some day, but I’ll give you some trouble before you do.” At this stage the police magistrate intimated that he would adjourn the court until 10 o’clock next morning, which was accordingly done. Mr. Gaunson made a formal application that the prisoner’s sister be allowed to see him, and said that the bench had no right to give any attention to the informal orders of the Chief Secre-tary. Mr. Foster said that he would see Mr. Gaun-son later in the evening on the subject. Subse-quently Mr. Gaunson had an interview with Mr. Foster, and renewed the application for Mrs. Skillion’s admittance to the gaol to see her brother, but the police magistrate declined to permit the visit, whereupon Mr. Gaunson tele-graphed to the Chief Secretary.