Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Friday 20 December 1878, page 3


EDWARD KELLY'S LETTER. The sympathy evinced inferentially for the Kelly gang by Mr Donald Cameron, M.L.A., as shown by his questions in Parliament, and the continual slurs written by him to the Press upon the personal courage and integrity of the police, have resulted in his being made the depositary of Edward Kelly's confidence. The mis-creant sent to Mr Cameron about 20 pages of MS., which upon examination turns out to be the letter spoken of by Mrs Fitzgerald as having been written by him at Faithful Creek station. The packet bore the Glenrowan post-mark of 16th inst., and must have been posted on that day or the preceding Sunday. Mr Cameron decided to keep the matter a "secret" until the Chief Secretary had been consulted. He waited on Mr Berry on Wednesday, and that gentleman decided that it would be improper and injudicious to publish the letter, at any rate just now. Never-theless, Mr Cameron gives the whole gist of the letter to the papers for which he acts as correspondent, and it is as follows: "The letter is cleverly written, and starts with the statement that the writer despairs of justice, unless the public listen to his wrongs. He goes on to narrate the manner in which he has been continually harassed by the police in petty ways, and how they annoyed his family and knocked his sisters about. Great complaint is made of the way in which Fitzpatrick and a certain publican gave their evidence about the Greta affair, which led to Kelly's mother with her baby and two men, who Kelly states were incorrect (innocent?), being sent to gaol for assaulting Fitz-patrick. Kelly swears he was not at Greta then, but four hundred miles away, and that Fitzpatrick was not shot by Dan Kelly; that Fitzpatrick had no warrant, and that was why Mrs Kelly and Dan threw him out of the house. On returning home Kelly found himself pro-scribed with £100 reward offered for him, and then he went off with his brother to Bullock Creek, where they worked at mining. Hearing that the police had turned out, and that the country was "woven" with police sent after them, they thought it the best plan to surprise the police in their camp, and get their arms, ammunition and horses, as they had only two small guns, and then to make a rush and get through the circle. Kelly then describes fully the Wombat Creek massacre. They sneaked upon the camp after hearing the firing of guns, and when he appeared they called on Macintyre to surrender, which he did, but Lonigan ran behind a log, and was raising his hand to shoot Kelly when the latter shot him dead. On the return of Scanlan and Kennedy, the former was shot while shooting at the Kellys, and the latter ran behind a tree firing. Kelly shot him in the arm, when he at once rushed into the open, dropping his pistol. Kelly, however, did not see this, and when Ken-nedy turned, no doubt to surrender, he shot him through the chest. Kelly's letter concluded with violent threats that if justice is not done to his relatives and the innocent men in prison, he would turn tiger, and war against all human kind. He has no wish to kill civilians, but if the police go about in disguise he cannot dis-tinguish between them, and he threatens to cause a great railway disaster. The letter concludes with four lines of original poetry, signed "with a sweet good-bye, from Edward Kelly, a forced outlaw." Curiously enough, in another part of the Mercury, from which the foregoing is extracted, Mr Cameron, referring respect-fully to himself, expresses a fervent hope "that the letter will not see the light until Ned Kelly is shot, as there is too much sympathy for the bloodthirsty ruf-fians;" and then proceeds to dish up another slander against the courage and capacity of the police.