they were secured and conducted back. When the alarm was spread, the residents cheerfully rendered assistance. A stray straggler was picked up here and there, but the most desperate of the villains for a time baffled pursuit. When intelligence of the outburst reached Melbourne, the city and district ChiefConstables (Bloomfield and Brodie), were soon in the saddle and away with some troopers to join in the hunt. They visited the Saltwater River and the Merri Creek, and posted constables in several places with the view to cut off retreat. Before next morning the convicts were all recaptured except three (the worst ofthe lot), and one of them was discovered working as a baker's boy at Richmond, with his "Jim Crow" hat turned inside out, the broad arrow obliterated from his clothes, and the illuminated letters "Pentridge" whitened off his back, and, in order that he might be taken for a denizen ofthe "floury" land, he procured lime and white-washed his clothes. It is singular that one Farrell, the ringleader and the first to rush, was the first to surrender. He was all bounce and bravado until he heard the first shot fired. A coroner's inquest was held on Taylor, the man shot dead, and the jury returned as their verdict, that death had been caused by a gun-shot wound inflicted by a duly authorised constable upon a prisoner whilst endeavouring to escape from legal custody. A rider was added expressing approval of the conduct of the police.
On the next night (30th), eleven of the captured prisoners were ironed and kept together. Some noise was heard from their quarter of the Stockade, and on the Superintendent examining as to the cause, he was astonished to find that all the fellows had their irons off; and a closer inspection revealed an aperture cut in the roof of the building, and concealed by an old shirt drawn over it like a curtain. How this had been effected remained one of the ten thousand and one lost secrets of the since big prison-house. The prisoners were freshly and doubly ironed, and on the 1st September were convicted before a Magisterial Board of attempting to abscond. They were sentenced to one hundred lashes each, and the floggings were served out there and then.
Still the application of the scourge failed to keep the prisoners within reasonable bounds of subordination, and the gold mania, then in its incipient stage, no doubt was a powerful factor in the disaffection. As an additional terror, Harris, the ex-hangman, was transferred from the gaol to the Stockade, where it was thought the presence of a resident fouetteur would operate salutarily, and he was kept so fully employed as to be unequal to the amount of work he had daily in hand, so that it was necessary to have the actual hangman (Cahill) to help him.
Attempt to Level Pentridge.
In the construction of the Stockade iron screws and nuts were used, so that the frame could be, at any time, shifted like a travelling circus, from place to place ; and this faulty mode of conformation did not escape the observation of the class of beings domiciled there. It occurred to some of the most scientific of them that if at any given time one side of a row of nuts were unscrewed, the whole concern would topple over, and a general escape would not be an insuperable difficulty. It was consequently agreed to make the experiment. The unscrewing was secretly commenced, and on the night of the 9th September, the crisis was to be brought about. But the Superintendent got wind of the plot through information secretly conveyed to him by one of the spies inseparable from such communities, and being on the qui vive, he caught six of the principals, red-handed, and had them forwarded next morning to the Melbourne gaol. Three of them were leg-ironed, and to these were handcuffed the remainder, and under an escort of four black-troopers, and two infantry policemen, they were dispatched on their journey. They arrived safely at Russell Street, and whilst awaiting admittance at the gate of the prison, one of them, Callaghan (a five years' man), snapping his bracelets, dashed away, and running round by the Court-house, plunged into a crowd collected there for a Legislative Council nomination about to come off. He was followed by one of the constables from whom he had broken away, loudly calling upon him to surrender, to which a deaf ear was given. The constable, whose conduct was cool and self-possessed, continued the pursuit, and whilst the fugitive was furiously wriggling his way through the people, he received a carbine ball, which, entering under the left shoulder, came out at his ribs, smashing one of them. He fell, and was removed, in a dangerous condition, to the gaol, but the thread of life was strong in him, and he afterwards recovered.
