The Holbrook news., 1912-06-28


 part of the world into which And above all, domain dominated by the terrible bushranger. Such was my earliest conception of 1t which still obtains in the minds of thousands of British people.
 And how different Is the reality! The country certainly is spacious and sparsely inhabited. Men also get gold and rear cattle, but not as once they did. The days of finding are over. And as for Dame Fashion-alas, she Is too much in evidence. She is more audacious here than anywhere else, except 1t be Paris.
 But 1t is of the bushranger that propose to write; the bushranger who was even as late as thirty years ago, but who now no longer exists. writes F. 0. Spur in the Montreal Weekly Herald. The swaggering villain of the time-honored novel who entered an Australian bar and held up" pro prietor and patrons and having robbed them took to the road again-he has ceased to be-
 A featuring engagement took me to Beechworth, amongst the hills. There I found our enchanting country full of natural wealth and beauty; a place hidden from the eyes of the crowd, but sought by tired town-dwellers, who, weary of dust and noise aspire after a period of repose in E spot where the air is a veritable elixir of life. and where the earth laughs with flowers and fruits. High as is Beech worth, oranges and lemons grow there.
 But despite its attractions. the town is beginning to die. This Is the trag edy of Australia-that small towns which were called into existence through the finding of gold begin tc perish as soon as the gold is ex hausted. The mines are closed down the miners depart, shopkeepers lost their patrons, and they, too, are com pelled to put up the shutters.
 Gold and bushrangers7 There is ar affinity between the two. But for th' presence of the one, the others would not have come into existence. Beech worth was once the center of the op erations of the most desperate gani of bushrangers Australia has eve known.
 The Kelly Gang.
 heard the story from the lips O the oldest inhabitant," vigorous ol Scotsman who has passed his eighty fourth year. and who retains a clee memory and a youthful spirit He wa one of the magistrates who tried tn members of the terrible Kelly gang. He pointed out the place where stoo the prison in which the preclou scoundrels were incarcerated.
 With pride he conducted us to rock which Is named after him-lr eram's rock-from which we obtaine a marvellous panorama of hilly couI try extending many miles in ever direction. And there, deep down the dell. lay caves and other hidin places in which the thieves foun shelter from the harassing police an soldiery. We stood in the heart ( the bushrangers' country.
 The story of that time when tol today makes the flesh shiver. As W surveyed the beautiful landscape an shared the deep tranquility of hill an dale we found 1t difficult to beliey that only thirty years ago this coul try-side was at the mercy of three ( four desperadoes, who kept the | habttants in a state of continual te TOT. Three or four men-Irishmen- armed with guns and revolvers, raidt where they pleased, killed whom tho pleased, and lived as they pleased. Soldiers, and police alike were foil'
 by them, and when they were at la
 taken, it was more by accident thi
 design. Dick Turpin, so far as En a land is concerned. belongs to pa @ age. l, Don Quixote may be still wanderil }. in some guise or other amongst u r Spanish mountains. But that a small band of Irishmen should at |
 end of the nineteenth century al t upon British territory continue the ( S plofts of the old-world is almost 3 credible.
 The father of the Kellys-for su o was the name of the gang-was k Irishman and Roman Catholic W I came over from the Emerald Isle vi :" GhA raDutation of being an "informel