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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:
    laughed at his cowardice for it was he who escorted me & Hall to Wangaratta I was tried & committed as Hall swore I claimed the mare the Doctor died as he would have proved Hall a perjurer Hall has been tried several times for perjury bit got clear as this is no crime in the Police force it is a credit to a Policeman to convict an innocent man but any muff can pot a guilty one Halls character is well known about El Dorado & Snowy Creek and Hall was considerably in debt to Mr L. O'Brien & as he was going to leave Greta Mr. O'Brien seen no other chance of getting his money so there was a subscription collected for Hall & with the aid of this money he got James Murdock who was recently hung in Wagga Wagga to give false evidence against me but was acquitted on the charge of horsestealing & on Hall & Murdocks evidence I was found guilty of receiving and got 3 years experience in Beechworth Pentridges dungeons. this is the only charge ever proved against me therefore I can say I never was convicted of horse or cattle stealing My brother Dan was never charged with assaulting a woman but he was sentenced to three months without the option of a fine and one month and two pound fine for damaging property by Mr Butler PM. a sentence that there is no law to uphold therefore the minister of justice neglected his duty in that case, but there never was such a thing as justice in the English laws but any amount of injustice to be had, but of over thirty head of the very best horses the land could produce I could only find one when I got my liberty. Constable Flood stole & sold the most of them to the navvies on the railway line one bay cob he stole & sold four different times the line was completed and the men all gone when I came out and Flood was shifted to Oxley. he carried on the same game there all the stray horses that was any time without an owner & not in the Police Gazette Flood used to claim He was doing a good trade at Oxley until Mr Brown of the Laceby station got him shifted as he was always running big horses about, Flood is different to Sergeant Steel, Strachan, Hall & the most of Police as they have got to hire cads & if they fail the police are quite helpless. But Flood can made a cheque single-handed he is the greatest horsestealer with the exception of myself & George King I know of.
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Public Record Office Victoria (State Archives of Victoria, Australia)

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