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Jerilderie Letter Jerilderie Letter

Public Record Office Victoria

Public Record Office Victoria (State Archives of Victoria, Australia)

Public Record Office Victoria (State Archives of Victoria, Australia)
North Melbourne, Australia

Also known as the Jerilderie letter, this 17-page statement is a transcription made of the original letter. Ned Kelly handed the original to Edwin Living at Jerilderie. Living had promised Kelly that he would pass it on to the town printer Mr. Gill but did not do so. Living eventually made the original available to the Criminal Law Branch of the Office of the Victorian Government Solicitor whilst the Kelly Crown prosecution case was being prepared on condition that only one copy of it was made and the original returned to him.

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  • Title: Jerilderie Letter Jerilderie Letter
  • Creator: Public Record Office Victoria, Public Record Office Victoria
  • Date Created: 1879
  • Provenance: VPRS 4966 P0 Unit 1 Item 5, VPRS 4966 P0 Unit 1 Item 5
  • Transcript:
    to take one poor little half starved larrakin to a watch house. I have seen as many as eleven, big & ugly enough to lift Mount Macedon out of a crab hole more like the species of a baboon or Guerilla than a man. actually come into a court house & swear they could not arrest one eight stone larrakin and them armed with battens & neddies without some civilians assistance and some of them going to the hospital from the affects of hits from the fists of the larrakin and the Magistrate would send the poor little Larrakin into a dungeon for being a better man than such a parcel of armed curs. What would England do if America declared war & hoisted a green flag as its all Irishmen that has got command, of her armies forts & batteries even her very life guards & beef tasters are Irish would they not slew around and fight her with their own arms for the sake of the colour they dare not wear for years & to reinstate it & rise old Erins isle once more, from the pressure and tyrannism of the English yoke, which has kept it in poverty & starvation & caused them to wear the enemies coats. What else can England expect. Is there not big fat-necked Unicorns enough paid to torment & drive me to do thing which I don't wish to do, without the public assisting them I have never interfered with any person unless they deserved it. and yet there are civilians who take firearms against me, for what reason I do not know, unless they want me to turn on them and exterminate them without medicine. I shall be compelled to make an example of some of them if they cannot find no other employment If I had robbed and plundered ravished and murdered everything I met young & old rich and poor, the public could not do any more than take firearms and Assisting the police as they have done, but by the light that shines pegged on an ant-bed with their bellies opened, their fat taken out rendered & poured down their throat boiling hot will be fool to what pleasure I will give some of them and any person aiding or harboring or assisting the Police in any way whatever or employing any person whom they know to be a detective or, cad or those who would be so deprived as to take blood money will be outlawed and declared unfit to be allowed human burial their property either consumed or confiscated & them theirs & all belonging to them exterminated off the face of the earth, the enemy I cannot catch myself I shall give a payable reward for, I would like to know who put that article that reminds me of a poodle dog half clipped in the lion fashion, called Brooke E. Smith Superintendent of Police he knows as much about commanding Police as Captain Standish does about mustering mosquitoes and boiling them down for their fat on the back blocks of the Lachlan for he has a head like a turnip a stiff neck as big as his shoulders narrow hipped & pointed towards the feet like a vine stake and if there is any one to be called
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Public Record Office Victoria (State Archives of Victoria, Australia)

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