The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-17
street, Tottenham Court road, and d.
Yided the spoil some f4OnO

street, Tottenham Court road, and d.
vided the spoil, some $4,000.
In the course of the next few months
the suspicious of the bank were arous-
ed and Fletcher and Barber were
arrested. Two minor members of
the conspiracy, Mrs. Dorey and a
man named Griffin, We're also captured.
Mr.. and Mrs. Sanders eluded the po-
lice for two months. Griffin turned
queens evidence and the other five
prisoners We're placed in the dock.
Fletcher was charged with forging the
will and a bond and Barber, with ut
tering them in connection with letters
of administration. Barber earnestly
but unsuccessfully appealed to be tried
alone, when he could demonstrate his
innocence. The initial judicial blunder
was taking it for granted he must be
member of the gang. From that I'M
fair and unwarranta presumption all
the subsequent mischief flowed. His
innocence was overshadowed by the
undoubted criminality of those with
whom he had to stand in the dock and
he had to share their fate.
To make appearances worse for poor
Barber, his partner, Bircham, fled and
could nowhere be found at the trial.
although he was in a position to give
valuable evidence that BARRIERS actions
had been bona fide throughout. 1t af-
terward transpired that he was tenn
porarily panic-stricken by his part
ners arrest, thought he might be In
volved and therefore considered it
best to hide. All the others in the
dock knew, of course, that Barber was
an innocent victim, but they could not
say so without discriminating them
selves. After conviction they did pro-
claim his innocence but no Importance
or credibility was attached to their
statements then. The trial ended IN
Fletcher and Barber being sentenced
to transportation for life. Sanders to
transportation for seven years, Mrs.
Sanders to two years imprisonment
and Mrs. Dorey to the same penalty.
Barber remained for week in New
gate and was then taken taken to Mil
bank, chained to a doubly convicted
felon. After two months in solitary
cell at Milbank he was handcuffed and
chained to half a dozen other convicts
and thus proceeded in a boat down the
river to Woolwich, whers he was placed
on board convict-ship. Six days later
the voyage commenced and on the
fourth day out at sea Barber was re-
lieved of his chains. which had severely
excoriated his ankles. The Agincourt
was bound for Norfolk island. lonely
spot in the Pacific, now the home of the
descendants of the mutineers of the
Bounty, then the penal settlement to
which the very worst offenders, the
desperadoes of Great Britain and Aus
tralia were sent as irreclaimable. 1t
was veritable hell upon earth, place
of unutterable infamies. The voyage
lasted four months. There We're 200
convicts on board under military
guard of so and Barber was treated
precisely like all the others.
1t was on landing in Norfolk island
that Barber found himself compelled
to drink the cup of unmerited afflc-
tion to the very dregs For some rea-
son or other the commandant of the
island. Major Childs, conceived an in
tense antipathy to him from the out
set and subjected him to horrible in
dignities and outrages. Soon after
their arrival the better educated con-
victs who had good reports from the
superintendent of the ship received APP
pointments as clerks. servants to Off
GERS, etc. Both Fletcher and Barber
were of this class, but whereas the for
mer dropped into a comfortable billet
as hospital dispenser, his unhappy vic
tim, the innocent Barber, was compell-
ed to labor at the most disgusting oc-
equations and made to feel at every
turn the hostility of the tyrannical au-
tocrat of the place. A Lieutenant
Lloyd and two other officers in sue