The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-15 00:00:00

THUGGISH IN NEW ZEALAND.

The greatest excitement has been created in this
provinoe by the amen of a gang of four men, who, with
other accomplices who have, it ts supposed, gone to Aus-
tralia, have evidently for a length of time been
eorninittiog robberies on the West Coast gold fields,
and in the course of their career have committed
upwards of 30 atrocious and cold-blooded murders.
The suspicions of Mr. Jervis, innkeeper at Can-
vas Town—which had been aroused by the dis-
appearance of four persons all residing at Deep Creek,
named Felix Matthiew, hotel keeper ; John Kemptherne.
storekeeper ; James Pontius, miner ; and James Dudley,
storekeeper—were directed wards • party of fourietrangers
who put up at his house and left shortly before the unfortu-
nate victims started for Nelson on the 12th of June, with
a pack-horse and considerable property in goods and
messy with them, where they never arrived. Mr.
Jervis tracked them on their way until he lost '
all clue, and then communicated with the police.
General suspicion was roamed, and large parties vo-
lunteered to search the district, highly to their
credit declining the rewards offered by the relatives of the
murdered men. The gang suspected by Mr. Jervis, who,
when they were at Canvas Town, were almost destitute,
were arrested at Nelson, pretending to be unknown to each
caber, flush of money, having purchased new clothes and
most suspiciously having all shaved off their beards and
mustaches. Their names are Richard Burgess, alias Hall ;
Thomas Kelly, alias Hannan, alias Noon ; Thomas, alias
John Joseph Sullivan;and William, alias Phil Levy.
Thames Sullivan had strangely enough assumed
the name of John Joseph Sullivan, a man I
wanted by the Otsego polies, oa his snivel in
the colony about three months, ago indicating tlict
the gang had connexions in Australia, where, indeed, they
had been long known as most desperate characters. After
their arrest Sullivan made a confession, acknowledging
that the gang had not only walaid and murdered
the four men above mentioned, but also Mr. Doh- ;
son, jun. the Government Surveyor of Canterbury,
and a pedlar, named James Battle, all of whose
bodies had been recovered from his information ; but he
also stated that they had in their cups bragged of
many other " exploits " of the like character which
the had committed previous to his joining them ;
and there is too much reason to fear that these
revelations fall short of the actual facts, for
the sadden disappearance of a great many persons at
different times fearfully harmonises with the man's state-
ments, and many of the circumstances narrated by him
are corroborated by the evidence of other parties. Mr.
Dobson was garotted on the most scientific principles, and
so were James Dudley and Battle, showing that some of
the gang were such proficients in this fatal art that in one
case the medical man could assign no cause of deuth
except a slight congestion of the brain and lungs, but not
of itself sufficient to account for strangulation in the total
absence of any extern a/ violence beyond a slight mark of
pressure on and the displacement of the apple of the throat.
Rally, or Noon, had been tried for murder at the Ovens, in
Victoria, in 1853, for which his brother was hanged.
Burgess had been mate to the notorious Captain Melville,
and was known to be the most daring but cool and
cautions desperado in Australia. Levy had kept •
shanty on the banks of the Molyneux, in Otago, and
the number of bodies of parsons found drowned in
, crossing that stream had excited the suspicious of the
police, but no proof was ever brought against him.
In fact, the career of the gang would fill a volume. In addi-
tion to these murders, they had been watching Mr. Yates,
the gold buyer of the Bank of New South Wales in Otago,
' i but he escaped their attentions. It is also proved that they
carried strychnine, with the diabolic object of poisoning any
party too numerous for attack by joining with them and
seizing the opportunity of drugging their liquor at any rest-
ing-place. At the time of their arrest, they had come to
Nelson for the purpose of robbing the bank of New South
Wales, and one of them was on the point of going to Aus-
tralia to obtainreinforoement and appliances. They had fully
reconnoitred the premises, and their plan was for one to go
in and see the manager just before the closing hour, and
whilst he was engaged the rest were to rash in, close the
doors (which would not then exctaittention), overpower
the clerks, and murder them all. One body was to be buried,
' • in the hope that it would be thought he had done the deed
and escaped by steamer to Australia, as they intended to do,
having laid their plans accordingly. The confession of
, Sullivan was fully corroborated by the diacoveiy of the
bodice just as he indicated, the strychnine which was
, concealed as he declared, and the evidence of many
I witnesses, which, pus together, makes a most extraordi-
I nary chain of evidence, sufficient to have convicted them
without Sullivan's confession, but unimpeachable with it.
They had been committed and would provably be tried at
a special commission in September.—Australian and New
Zealand Gazette.

DEATH FROM HYDROPHOBIA.—Yesterday, Mr.
W. Carter
oa
coroner for East Surrey, held an inquest at
the Stag nn, Wandsworth-rd, respecting the daith of
I
William Henry Leighton, aged nine years which occurred
through having been bitten by a rabid dog. It appeared
that on Sunday morning, the sth August, the deceased,
with a younger child, went out to get some milk, and
shortly after ran home screaming, and said he had been
bitten by a dog. He was bleeding from the right hand and
arm. The skin was broken, back and front. It wan such
a wound as might have been caused by the bite of a dog.
His arm was washed, and a poultice put on. He was
taken to Mr. French, a surgeon in the neighbourhood, who
neither excised nor cauterized the wound, but advised the
child not to be frightened, and the wound healed up in
about a week, and the child appeared very hearty until
last Sunday, when, although he had taken his usual rest
on the previous night, he returned home from chapel and
seemed at first drowsy, and reclined on the sofa, saying that
his head ached, and that he thought he had taken odd
from having been out in the wet on the previous day.
He appeared much the same on the following day. On
Tuesday he seemed much worse, and about eight o'clock in
the evening Mr. Duncan, surgeon, was called in. The
' deceased exhibited some very extraordinary rymptoms,
made strange noises, like barking or snarling, had great
difficulty in swallowing, evinced a repugnance for water
or other liquids, and on attempting to take any was
affected with violent spasms, and complained that
there were flies in his eyes, and his legs were
drawn op with cramps. These symptoms increased
in violence. He died on Wednesday evening.
Hr. H. Duncan, of Seymour-place, Wandsworth-rand,
surgeon, said he found deceased much agitated and his
' whole frame convulsed, and the general symptoms denoting
that he was suffering from rabies, or hydrophobia. lie
tried by salivation, km., to afford redid, but it was • hope-
, led caw There was no known CM for such dimmed. He
' appeared to suffer ;vp:at, pain from spasms before death.ho doubt he died f hydrophobia, caused by a dog bite.
The jury returned a verdict of " Death from hyd
phobia," at first reeesesseaded the additive of •
the police to the subject, but eventually decided upon
memorialising the Home Secretary.