26 August 1937

ESCAPE AND DEATH OF KILLER

Sullen Native Who Beat John Mulhall To Death

In this story from real life, 'Far North' tells of the tragic death of John Mulhall, an inoffensive man who went outback after having trained for the priesthood. The murderer, a sullen, treacherous native, Logic, escaped from Yatala, but a few years later met his death.

Many old bushmen will remember Logic, the blackfellow, who made a remarkable escape from the quarries of the Yatala Labor Prison in 1885 while serving a life sentence for the murder of a stockman on Linga Lingina Station. He was a brutal killer attended by remarkable luck. A native of Queensland, nothing was known of his history up till the time of the murder. It then transpired that he had been employed as horse boy by several Queensland drovers, but his sullen, treacherous nature, and frequent desertions soon became a bar to his employment.

He wandered into South Australia and forced himself on the tribes of the Strzelecki Creek. He finally went to Linga Lingina. a stranger among the many local blacks. As he spoke fair English and was used to horses, he was given employment as one of the station 'horse boys.' A 'boy' accompanied a white cattleman when he went on long rides, skirting the cattle tracks on unfenced country. It was the boy's job to hunt the horses in the morning, and bring along the loose horses in the daytime.

Logic soon proved himself useless, silent, and sullen. He would lag behind the white man letting the horses wander where they would while he hunted, cooked, and ate lizards and suchlike. At last he would get the horses together and lose much time tracking the white man who had been waiting perhaps for hours on a camp site for the packs to come. This caused much inconvenience, but no amount of persuasion could alter the black's dilatory ways. Each cattleman who tried him once would not take him again.

He was at a loose end until a young stockman named John Mulhall, who was going on a long ride, decided to give him a trial. This young fellow should never have been a cattleman. Soft spoken, highly educated and trained for the priesthood, he was not of the stuff of which cattlemen are made. When he rode away for the last time there was no greater contrast than the silent, dour black and the priestly cattleman.

Next morning, when the horses were brought from the horse paddock, the one that Logic had ridden away was found to be among them, and his saddle and bridle were hanging on the stockyard rail. Enquiries at the black's camp gave no trace of Logic. As he was no friend of the local blacks, there was no difficulty in getting trackers to accompany a party, who ran back the horse's tracks. After a long ride they came to a shallow claypan which recently contained water, and on the muddy bottom was the body of the murdered stockman with his head brutally battered.

Tracks in the mud told of a ghastly struggle, and showed where the boots of the white man continually slipped on the clay surface, while the marks of Logic's bare feet were firmly embedded, pointing out the black's advantage.

Battered To Death

Beside the body were two sticks— one a dry needlewood branch broken in the attack, and evidently was the one which felled the white man. Tracks showed that Logic then ran to a nearby needlewood, and breaking off a green stick returned and battered the head of his victim. This stick was covered with blood.

It was a grim trick of fate that saved Logic from being shot, as his victim possessed a fully loaded revolver. All cattlemen carried revolvers in those days, and Jack Mulhall was about the only one who did not attach the leather holster to his belt. Instead, he carried the revolver stuck in the waistband of his trousers attached to one of the buttons. It some how broke away and slipped down the inside of his trousers leg, becoming firmly wedged inside his leather legging. He was probably trying to retrieve it when the black saw an opening for the first blow. The packhorses were found with packs still on them, and wood had been gathered for a fire, suggesting that the trouble had arisen over the old annoyance concerning the late arrival of the packs.

When the police arrived panic seized the blacks and large encampments broke up into wandering fragmentary groups. It was impossible to get any information from them and Logic had not been seen. The police decided to postpone the hunt and give them time to settle down again. This worked admirably, and the blacks, thinking the chase had been abandoned, returned in large numbers to their old camps.

One morning a group visited the station and told the manager that Logic was in their camp. 'You bin gibbit plenty flour, plenty tea, plenty sugar, baccy, and plenty no good old shirt belonga white fel low, we bin catchim that fellow Logic,' they said.

This suggestion was agreed to, and sure enough they mobbed Logic while asleep and dragged him struggling to the station followed by half the tribe bristling with spears. He was chained to a post in the blacksmith's shop until the arrival of the police.

During his trial he was as dour and as sullen as ever. The sentence was imprisonment for life. Transferred to Yatala, he was put to work in the quarries, and one day made a sensational break for freedom. Racing across the paddocks, flinging off his clothing as he ran, and with the guards' bullets skipping around him, he again defeated death and got clean away.

He evaded all settlements, but after several weeks was recaptured at Wilpena Pound, in the Flinders Ranges while cooking a 'possum for his supper. After his escape public sympathy was so strong in his favor that it secured his ultimate release. He was given a tomahawk and a blanket and sent north. It was reported long after that he had died after reaching the cattle country. Bushmen said his death was due to the degrading effects of civilisation while living among: the white cattle men. — 'Far North.'

Capital City Planned At Custon

To look at Custon on a survey map of the South-East, one might imagine it to be a state capital, for the plan shows streets innumerable surrounding a large open space labelled 'University block.' But the Custon of reality is only a store and several houses; the place is one of the towns which never fulfilled the dreams of those who planned it.

The story of Custon is linked up with the building of the South-Eastern railway system. The first line was built to link Naracoorte with the seaport of Kingston, but before long it was seen that the line would have to be carried north from Naracoorte to cater for the needs of the farmers who were growing wheat on the fertile Tatiara plains. Custon was fixed as the northern terminus of the line and the first building to be erected there was a public-house owned by a man known far and wide by the name of "Taffy."

When fixing the site for his hotel, Taffy did not bother about survey pegs; he built on the first available open space. Gradually the line crept north from Naracoorte; and one day Taffy received a shock when the surveyors came to him and informed him that his new hotel stood fair in line with their survey. There was nothing for him to do but pull the place down. When he re-erected it he built it a mile distant from the first location, to be sure of avoiding any future trouble.

Mountain Of Empty Kegs

For a time he did a roaring trade and a mountain of empty kegs and bottles accumulated in the back yard. In his happy-go-lucky way, Taffy did not bother about sending back any 'returned empties.' He had the only hotel for miles around and was doing a record trade. Why should he bother about trifles like empty bottles and casks?

One day a man came along and offered to buy the stack of empties. Taffy struck a bargain with him and regarded the proceeds as easy money until the buyer got down to the bottom layer of the stack, where he found a big cask which was too heavy to move. The buyer looked at the faded label on the cask. It indicated that the contents were Scotch whisky, and an expensive brand at that. Hardly able to believe his good fortune, the buyer tipped the cask on its side, knocked out the bung and tasted the liquor inside. Then he doubted no longer — it was a cask of Scotch which had been placed there because the cellar was full and it had been forgotten. He already stood to make a good profit over the empties which he had bought, but that full cask gave him an extra £80.

That loss, however, was nothing to the one which was in store for the publican. When the railway was first built there was no line connecting Adelaide and Melbourne; the hills railway ended at Aldgate. Now there began to be talk of a line connecting the two capitals and before long it became fact; the railway from Naracoorte was carried north to join it at Wolseley and Taffy's hotel was left stranded in the wilderness, as it were.

Crumbling Remains Now

Anyone who seeks the site of that hotel today will find only the crumbling remains of the foundations. Custon, the town which was to be the future capital of the South-East, was strangled at birth, and today sheep graze on the site of the University which was never built, and over the streets which were never laid. Misled by the maps, people occasionally drive round the district in search of the town which was never built; sometimes humorists direct strangers to go there. But all that anyone ever sees of the town which bulks so largely upon the map is a store, a railway siding and some cottages. The rest is no different in appearance from any other patch of the surrounding country. It is a strange sidelight upon human nature that there are still optimists who hold the title deeds of allotments in the town, and who hope that the place will be built some day. — 'Ullabulla.'

Clothes Made Teddy Murphy

We were four in family, and lived on a lonely farm about four miles from a tiny township in the South East. One morning my daughter and I were lingering over breakfast, having done the milking, feeding calves, &c, for my husband had gone away for a couple of days on business, and my son was up north doing wool classing. There was to be a fancy dress girls' frolic in the village, and as it was for girls only, some of them were to dress in men's clothes to partner the other girls in the dancing. My daughter Mabel was to be one of these.

'Mum, I would like to look really funny, and make the girls laugh,' she said. ''Well,' I replied, 'we have a slack morning today, so go and dress up and I'll see if I can make any suggestions.' She went off and soon returned in one of her father's old suits, big boots and old hat, and her face touched up with a piece of charcoal from the oven fire. She looked tall and broad and not at all like my rather pretty slim daughter.

I suggested several small additions and said, 'When you slouch along like that you remind me of Teddy Murphy, why not impersonate him? But you will have to carry a gun.' This Teddy Murphy was a well known character in our part of the world, with an amusing tongue and quick wit, and he nearly always carried a gun. He was, however, absolutely worthless and had finally taken to sheep stealing and been imprisoned for several years.

When we had decided on the part Mabel was to play, I said, 'Now go along and study how you have fixed your face and how to slouch along with the gun in your hand, for ten minutes or so in front of your mirror, and then you'll be ready for the 'Frolic' tomorrow night as Teddy Murphy. She went off to her bedroom next to the kitchen, and I began to clear the table.

Evil Face In Doorway

I looked up to see a man in the doorway; a thickset, shortish fellow, with the most evil face I think I have ever seen. He walked in with, 'I'll have a bite to eat and a nice hot cup of tea.'

'I'll call the Boss if you don't get out,' I said. With a leer he replied. 'You'll call pretty loud then, for I know he is away and you and the girl are here alone. I found out in the town. Here, be quick with that tea.' He seated himself at the table, helped himself to bread, butter and jam, and began to eat.

I was in a desperate fix and could think of no way out, when suddenly an idea came to me, and if only Mabel in the next room would understand we might get rid of the tramp, for she could hear everything that was said in the kitchen. I said in a loud voice, 'I suppose the gossips didn't tell you I had a son who has been shearing and who returned last night, for they wouldn't know he was back yet. He is one of the best shots in this State, and is on the front verandah cleaning his gun at this moment.'

'It's no use kidding, missus,' said the tramp with an evil look and his mouth full of food, 'here, get the tea,' and he half rose in a threatening manner. I turned to the stove at the same time calling out, 'Mabel, tell Teddy to come to the kitchen at once and bring his gun.' 'Yes! Mum!' the girl answered, and in a few seconds big boots tramped to the door and 'Teddy Murphy' with his gun to his shoulder appeared. 'Get out or I'll shoot,' said 'Teddy' in a gruff voice, a bit shaky to a critical ear.

But the tramp was already halfway across the yard and made good time down the road with 'Teddy Murphy' standing at our gate covering him with the gun. We watched him out of sight and on reaching the kitchen again, 'Teddy Murphy' fainted clean away.

When she recovered and had changed into her own clothes we put the horse into the buggy and drove full gallop to our neighbor's about two miles off. There, as there were no telephones then, one of the sons saddled up and soon had the police on the tramp's track. He was wanted by the police in Victoria, they found later, so he was sent over there and imprisoned for some time.

The 'girls' frolic' the next evening was a great success, and Mabel was the heroine or rather hero of the affair as 'Teddy Murphy.' — 'Chew.'

Honeymoon Jokers Who Came Off Worst

When a wedding took place in the northern country about 25 years ago, it was generally an occasion to look forward to, especially that of a prosperous farmer's daughter. Early in 1910 a farmer's daughter got married. The husband was 'Fancy,' that wasn't his nickname, but it will do.

Well, 'Fancy' was considered by the community in general to be a sort of sleepy hollow sort of chap, who had a good part of the district's property, including the good wife which he had just acquired. In those days it was the general custom for the lads of the surrounding farms to ride out and stand guard over the gates for the purpose of charging a royalty from the newly-weds before they could speed on their honeymoon. Somehow or other 'Fancy' was framed re the royalty.

A road encircled the holding. Entering from the south road was a lane which ended with one gate. East and west boundaries inlets, each had three gates, and the inlet on the north side had four gates. As no one knew which route the newly-weds would take, the lads mounted a guard of two on each gate. The married couple were seated in a new single hooded buggy with a nice pair of prancing blacks. After driving around the crowd 'Fancy' elected to go out the north way. At the first gate they charged him 1/ to open the gate. After searching his pockets, Fancy said he had nothing smaller than two-bob pieces.

Fancy Asks For Change

'Gotta bob on yer?' he queries of the guard. The guard forthwith hands him 1/ and takes 2/, opens the gate, and lets him through. This was done at each of the other three gates, and when he got through the last gate 'Fancy' laughed. These four lads who so cleverly thought that they had enriched themselves to the extent of 1/ had a come-down. Later one of them was displaying his two-shilling piece to some fair admirers, when he suddenly looked hard and long, and after careful scrutiny he found that his 2/ piece was a penny neatly covered with tinfoil. He summoned each of his colleagues, and they too discovered that they had been stung. They found that instead of getting 1/ they had given 'Fancy' 11d. to go away with. The laugh was long, you can be assured of that. No one thought anything like that of 'Fancy.'

When 'Fancy' arrived in Adelaide on the Broken Hill express, he did some shopping. He bought four brightly hued ties all alike at 9d. a tie. He carefully packed each one of them and posted them separately. He had collected 3/8 to go away with. The four ties at 9d. cost him 3/, plus 2d, each for postage.

Each of the recipients received their respective parcels, and strange, but true, each went to church on the next Sunday. When one arrived no one took any notice. When the next arrived we noticed two ties alike. Then another came along, and people began to look and wonder. Then the fourth appeared with his brand new tie, and at last it dawned on them. It was an easy guess. 'Fancy' had sent them a present for letting him through the gates so nicely. Yes, sent them a present with their own money. Nobody ever saw those ties again, and it doesn't do to talk about royalties to these boys. They answer you with a frosty eye.— ODEAR.