Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly Read Online Free Page A

years of his twelve-year sentence, released early for good behaviour, but Dan Morgan hadn’t learned his lesson.
    He returned to New South Wales. There, after a short time as a horse-breaker, Dan helped himself to a valuable horse. The horse’s owner chased and shot him, wounding him. Morgan escaped to an area near the Victorian border, from which he could rob people in northern Victoria.
    By mid-1863, Dan Morgan was a full-time bushranger. He committed many armed robberies. In August, he attacked a shepherd called Haley, whom he thought had informed on him. Haley survived the attack, but because of this, the New South Wales government put a 200 pounds reward on Morgan’s head. It would be much bigger by the time he was killed.
    The first murder we know for sure that he committed was of an innocent station overseer, John McLean. John worked on a station called Round Hill. In June 1864, Morgan came visiting. The terrified workers were rounded up. Morgan demanded rum. Now drunk, he accidentally shot at himself when he was about to ride off. Thinking someone else was attacking him, he threatened to kill the station manager, Sam Weston. However, he only shot Weston’s hand, then ordered John McLean to ride for a doctor.

    Suddenly it occurred to him that McLean might bring the police, so Morgan rode after him and shot him from behind.
    Next, he killed a trooper called Maginnity, whose partner, Churchley, rode off and left him. Churchley was sacked for cowardice, but what he did is understandable. Anyone who had Mad Dan Morgan waving a gun at them wouldn’t want to hang around. Other bushrangers had reasons for killing, but Dan Morgan might shoot someone just because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
    The price on his head, which had already gone up to 500 pounds, doubled to 1000 pounds.
    Morgan’s next victim was a senior police sergeant called Thomas Smyth. He was killed in September 1864. By now Mad Dan’s time was nearly up. He managed to commit plenty of robberies both in New South Wales and Victoria over the next few months, but his last hold-up happened on 8 April 1865.
    Morgan raided Peechalba Station in Victoria. He held the family prisoner for the night. A nursemaid managed to escape. She warned the station’s part-owner, Rutherford, who sent for the police from the nearby town of Wangaratta.
    The next day, Morgan headed for the stockyards to choose a horse, taking three hostages with him. The hostages weren’t much use to him, as a station employee called John Wendlan shot him from behind.
    That was the end of Mad Dan Morgan – but not of his body.
    First a photo was taken of his corpse, posed with his gun. Souvenir-hunters cut off his beard and long, curly hair. His face was skinned. His head was sent to the professor of anatomy at Melbourne University to be cut up and examined. What was left of him was buried at Wangaratta Cemetery.
    Today, people are still arguing whether Ned Kelly was a hero or a villain, but nobody thinks there was anything heroic about Dan Morgan.

    DID YOU KNOW…?

    In 2008, following the TV series ‘Underbelly’, which was about the Melbourne gang wars, eBay offered for sale two T-shirts supporting each side of the war – one for the Moran family, the other for Carl Williams’ gang.

FRANK GARDINER

    AND THE EUGOWRA GOLD ROBBERY

    I n the 1860s, there was a gold rush in New South Wales, at Lambing Flat and Blackridge, near Forbes. Enough gold was being mined at Forbes to make it worth sending the treasure to Bathurst by coach every week. The coaches were escorted by armed guards, of course, but having a regular gold coach did make things easier for bushrangers.
    The bushranger who decided to have a go at stealing the gold, in June 1862, was Frank Gardiner (real name Francis Christie), who had gathered a gang of seven for the purpose.
    Did the heist work? Well, yes – and no.
    The gang members weren’t professionals. They were cattlemen who did some robbery on the side. One