Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Monday 13 September 1886, page 4


THE OUTRAGE UPON A YOUNG

GIRL AT MOORE PARK.

STATEMENT MADE BY THE VICTIM.

EIGHT MEN IN CUSTODY.

The atrocious outrage perpetrated upon a young girl in Moore Park on Thursday afternoon last has been a theme of general comment during the last few days. In connec-tion with the horrible affair there are very few developments to record at the present time. The police are actively engaged in following up various clues which may lead to the identification and subsequent punishment of the offenders, of whom, it is stated, there are eleven. Up to the present time eight arrests, including that of a cabman, have been effected. Those of the prisoners who have not yet been before a magistrate in a police court in connection with the case will be charged with the crime to-day, and will probably be re-manded till Friday next in order that they may appear in court with the other men who have already been re-manded till that day. The victim of the assault is still an inmate of the Sydney Hospital. Her condition yester-day had greatly improved. The girl is youthful in ap-pearance, plain, and altogether unattractive. Her general bearing, however, is by no means repulsive. Dr. Marsden, the medical man who examined the girl shortly after she was taken charge of by the police, states that there was then every sign that she had immediately beforehand been grossly ill-used. Dr. Marsden, however, having been pro-fessionally called in by the police, courteously declines at the present juncture to make public a statement as to whether the girl had previously been a party to an act of immorality. Evidence upon this point will be given by him in the Police Court so soon as the charges made against the prisoners now in custody are pro-

ceeded with.

The victim of the outrage has made the following state-ment of her early career and of the circumstances attend-ing the fate which overtook her on Thursday last:—

"My name is Mary Jane Hicks; I am a servant girl, and am 16 years of age ; I was educated at the Bathurst Convent School ; when about 14 years of age I left the school ; I do not know how many years I was an inmate of the institution ; I was not born there ; I do not know where I was born ; I know nothing whatever about my father and mother ; I have four brothers, but no sister ; not long since I wrote to my brother Charles, at Bathurst ; I have reason to believe that he lived in that town till lately ; I have received no reply to the letter ; I do not know anything of my three other brothers ; when I left the convent I went into service in a large private house at Katoomba ; I re-mained there about six months ; during that time I used to assist with the housework ; my wages were 6s per week ; I left the service of my employer at this house in consequence of having been invited by my uncle, John Hicks, to come to Sydney ; I wrote four or five letters to my uncle before deciding to leave the situation ; according to instructions I addressed those letters to the Park-street post-office, Sydney ; before acting upon my uncle's suggestion in regard to coming to Sydney I wrote to him and said that he must first give me his correct address, so that I should be sure to meet with him ; in reply to the letter in which I made this statement my uncle wrote and told me that he was living at Rose Cottage, Botany-road, near the end of the second section of the tramway ; I agreed to come to Sydney and meet my uncle at the railway ter-minus Redfern ; I left my situation and came to Sydney, but did not see my uncle on the platform at the station ; I then tried to find my uncle's residence, Rose Cottage ; my search for the house was not a successful one; I then went to lodge at the "Farmers' Home" Hotel, George-street, Haymarket, until I could find a situation ; I re-mained at the hotel about a week ; my account for board and lodging was paid by a young man whose acquaintance I had made at Bathurst ; I met this young man in Sydney shortly after my arrival here and while I was in search of my uncle ; there had never been any improper intercourse between this young man and me ; the situation that I first met with in Sydney was at McGraths Hotel, George-street ; I remained in that situation for about a week only, as I was not able to perform the work required to be done ; I then went to the Convent of the Good Samaritan in Pitt-street ; I remained there until I obtained another situation ; the employment I ob-tained was with Mrs. Denis McGrath, sister-in-law of Mr. Jeremiah McGrath, the proprietor of McGrath's Hotel ; Mrs. Denis McGrath occupied a private house in Dick-street, off George-street West ; I held the situation for about three weeks ; at the end of this time I left, because Mrs. McGrath, who had been unwell, had recovered ; my wages while employed in this situation were 10s. per week ; after leaving this house I went to live with a woman named Mrs. Anderson, who resides at No. 99, Dixon-street, off Little Hay-street, Haymarket ; I made the acquaintance of this woman while living at McGrath's Hotel ; Mrs. Anderson lives in the house in Dick-street with her husband ; there is also a lodger, an elderly man, in the house ; up till Thursday last I had been living with Mrs. Anderson for about one week ; I did not pay anything for my board and lodging ; I was allowed to stay in the house while I was looking for another situation." On Thursday morning last I left Mrs. Anderson's house, in Dick-street, to try and find employment ; while l was

walking along Sussex-street, near Goulburn-street, a cabman called to me and asked me where I was going to ; I said that I was going to look for a situation, and that I was first of all going to a registry office in Castlereagh-street ; the cabman replied that he was going that way, and that he was going to try and find a house for his brother ; the cabman, while remaining in his seat, asked me to get into the cab, and told me that he would drive me wherever I wanted to go to ; I twice refused his offers ; afterwards the cabman left his

seat and got on to the footway with me ; he was a middle-aged man, not very tall; he had a red beard : after he got off his seat he told me to get into his cab ; I then got inside the cab, and asked him where he was going to drive me ; the man replied 'We'll go out somewhere and spend an hour or two ; he further said that he would pay for my board and lodging if I desired it ; I told him that I would not accompany him ; he then took his seat and drove off ; I did not have time to get out of the cab ; the cabman drove across George-street and up to Moore Park ; at Moore Park he left his seat, came into the cab, and commenced to take liberties with me ; I screamed loudly, and this brought a young man, apparently about 20 years of age, to the spot ; he offered to show me the way to the tram line, and said that the cabman was driving me to — ; at that time two other men were standing a short distance away ; the cabman resumed his seat, and at once drove off ; I accompanied the young man who offered to show me my way ; he took me into the bush, near some premises which he said were called the Rope Works ; he then said that he thought I must feel tired, and asked me to sit down for a little while ; he said that if I rested he would gather me some flowers ; I sat down for a little while ; after picking some flowers, the young fellow went and spoke to four or five other young men who were standing not far away ; he then returned to me, and gave me some flowers ; shortly afterwards he en-deavoured to commit a criminal offence upon me ; I screamed, and thus attracted to the scene two men, who came from a totally different direction to that in which the other four or five men referred to had been standing ; upon these two men coming to rescue me the person who had tried to assault me ran away ; the four or five men from the bush rushed upon the two men who had come to my aid, threw a number of stones and old boots at them, and drove them away ; the young fellow who had endea-voured to assault me, together with the other four or five persons, then offered to show me the way to the tram line so that I could return home ; I accompanied them be-cause I thought that if I refused they would compel me ; they took me farther into the bush, and, after breaking up some of the scrub threw me upon it and assaulted me ; I saw the faces of four or five of the persons who assaulted me ; after seven or eight men had assaulted me I became unconscious ; I did not at the time of the assaults see the faces of all the men who committed the offence ; this was because my eyes were covered while some of the men were assaulting me ; I saw additional faces after I recovered my consciousness, and while the men were starting to run away ; the police came upon the scene shortly afterwards ; when I recovered consciousness I was sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree ; I felt very ill ; I had very little clothing on ; my stockings were hanging up as if to dry ; they had been washed ; my dress had been taken off, and had been torn to pieces ; I was tidly (sic) dressed when I left Mrs. Anderson's house that morning ; before the policeman came to me in the Park, the men who had assaulted me had run off ; I was driven in a cab to the Darlinghurst police-station, and was there examined by Dr. Marsden ; I slept at the police-station that night, and was well-cared for while I remained there ; while at the station, I showed a bruise on the upper part of each of my arms to the police ; I have no recollection of being removed from the police station to the hospital ; I expect that I was in a faint at the time ; I have never cohabited with men of questionable character ; up to the time of the occurrence at Moore Park on Thursday last I had maintained purity of person."