on Driscoll, and the latter to get rid of Woods, who had threatened to give evidence against him for robbery and other misdeeds. No doubt their intention was to murder both men, destroying all evidence by burning their bodies. Driscoll had the good fortune to escape, and was thus enabled to give the necessary evidence at their trial. But though not directly implicated in the graver crime, the remaining three bushrangers—for such they were—lay under the charge of being associated with Gore in committing depredations which had alarmed the neighbourhood for the last six or seven weeks. They had not wandered far from the scene of their freebooting, and after eluding the police on several occasions, remained to be delivered up to justice by a party of civilians—headed, it is true, by an experienced and determined personage, exceptionally well mounted from one of the most famous studs in New South Wales. In that day the bushranger, desperate and ruthless though he may have been, was at a disadvantage compared to his modern imitator. He was mostly on foot. Horses were scarce and valuable. There were few stopping-places, except the stations of the squatters, where an armed, suspicious-looking stranger was either questioned or arrested. 'Shanties' had hardly commenced to plant centres of contagion in the 'lone Chorasmian waste.' The 'Shadow of Death Hotel' was in the future—fortunately for all sorts and conditions of men.
It is a curious coincidence, showing at once the just view taken of the circumstances of the locality and the means proper to lead to the extinction of 'gang robbery' (as the East India Company's servants termed the industry), that Mr. Thursby had just forwarded to the Legislative Council an estimate of the cost of a proposed Court of Petty Sessions at Wassalis. He also 'most respectfully begged to submit for the consideration of His Excellency the Governor a suggestion that a mounted police force would be advantageously stationed there, as well for the protection of the district as for the purpose of connecting the detachments of police at Murphy's Plains and Curban.'
'Many a year is in its grave' since the incidents here recorded affrighted the dwellers in the lonely bush.
It is satisfactory to note that Wassalis was promoted to be a place where a Court of Petty Sessions is holden.
