Old news from Armidale and New England

Saturday 10 November 1866, The Mercury (Hobart)

THE BANK ROBBERY IN QUEENSLAND.

CAPTURE OF THE ROBBERS, AND RECOVERY OF A PORTION OF THE MONEY.

(From the Tamworth Examiner, Oct. 27th.)

Our correspondent at Warialda, writing at nine p.m. on Monday last, supplies us with the satisfactory intelligence of the capture of three men, two of whom, there can be no doubt, are the same who stuck-up a bank in Queensland. The letter of our correspondent having been written hurriedly, we have connected the details, and they are us follows :-

In the Examiner of the 29th September last a paragraph appeared, which had been extracted from one of the Rockhampton papers, stating that on the 16th of that month the branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank at Mackay had been stuck-up by two men, mounted and armed, and robbed of £746 8s. It appears that about noon on that day a half-caste and a white man, a native of New South Wales, and pretty well-known in the Mackay district, entered the bank, and asked the teller for change of a note, The teller was obliged to stoop below the counter for the change, and on rising his head found himself covered with revolver held by the half-caste, who told him that if he moved he would settle him at once. Having learned from the teller that the manager was in the adjoining room, he was compelled to walk backward to it, still covered by the revolver. The white man was stationed at the front door, and when the manager’s room was reached, he was called by the darkey, and the three entered the manager’s room. The manager was speedily covered by a revolver, the keys of the safe of the room asked for and delivered up. After taking the amount first mentioned, they told their prisoners that if they attempted to move from the place for an hour they would return and give it to them. Upon this they left the bank, mounted their horse and rode off.

Sergeant Doherty, of Warialda, and constable Doherty, of Moree, having crossed the border into Queensland in search of other offenders, learned from the Examiner that this robbery had taken place ; and also that four mounted men, whom they had met near Moree, had passed a number of notes corresponding with those stolen, and were displaying large quantities of others of a like description. The sergeant sent a message to constable McCausland at Moree, to arrest them, and hurried back by forced marches of nearly sixty miles a day for seven days, in company with constable Doherty, to assist in the capture. Suspicion attached to one of the party then in Moree, and the sergeant apprehended him. He gave his name as Alexander Robertson, and on his person was found a note supposed to have been stolen. In the meantime constable McCausland, having received the sergeant’s message, followed up another man to Pallamallawa, and arrived there about daybreak. Having ascertained that the man was then at Mr. Corrigna’s hotel, he requested to be shown into his bedroom, the door of which was, however, found to be locked on the inside. A gentleman who was sleeping in the same room took the key of the room from under the man’s pillow, and opening the door admitted the constable and others, who were prepared to render assistance if necessary, but before the man awoke he was handcuffed and secured. On searching him he was found to have a Colt’s revolver capped and loaded, slung round his body and handy for immediate use ; and under the pillow in a valise was found the sum of £249, the whole of which, with the exception of about £20, being in notes of the bank which had been robbed. He gave his name as E. H. Ross, and he appeared to have been one of the principal actors in the robbery. Edward Sharp, Esq, J. P., happened to be at Pallamallawa at the time of the arrest, in company with Mr. Thynne, Crownlands Bailiff ; and both gentlemen started in pursuit of a man who bad been seen in company with prisoner, but who had left Pallamallawa before daylight, and supposed to have taken the direction of Mooree. On their arrival at the last named place, they found that the sergeant and constable Doherty had just arrived, and the supposed confederate had been apprehended. It seems that the police, after lodging their prisoners in the Warialda lock-up, did not lose a moment in starting off in search of the third man. Having got trace of him near the McIntyre River, they followed him up the Inverell, and assisted by the police there after a diligent search found the man in one of the public-houses. Sergeant Doherty immediately apprehended him, when a violent struggle ensued, the prisoner presenting a pistol and threatening to shoot the sergeant, which he might have done but for the intervention of constable McDowell and senior-constable Farnsworth, a blow from the latter having felled the man to the ground ; but McDowell was for some time in great danger, and had his hand severely torn in endeavouring to wrench the revolver from the fellow’s grasp. He was, however, secured, and is now safely with the other two in the Warialda lock-up. He gives his name as Henry Chandler, is a half-caste, doubtless the same who stuck up the bank, and a prime mover in the robbery. On his person was found upwards of £200 of the stolen money. The amount thus recovered by the active exertions of the police, to whom the greatest praise is due, is about £560 ; the balance of the amount stolen has no doubt been spent since the robbery.