The Jerilderie Letter Read Free

present past and future’. There can be no doubt who’s calling the shots now.
    This was the document from which Mrs Devine took instruction while her husband sat in the lock-up. Kelly was not going to take any chances this time with the publication of his letter. Which was why he was so enraged when he found out that the bloke he’d just seen dashing out the back door of the bank was Gill. The editor whiled away the rest of the day crouched in the gully of Billabong Creek, tremulously recalling the editorial he’d written some weeks earlier, giving Kelly and his gang short shrift. No doubt, as the long hours turned into dusk, Gill went over his fine phrases, hoping that if found he’d be given an opportunity to retract.
    Kelly may have read the editorial, but this was not his main concern. He needed Gill to operate his printing press. The printed word was a currencymore potent than banknotes, and he wanted access to that power. Recovering from his anger, he marched across town to Gill’s house with bank accountant Living and Constable Richards firmly in tow. Joe Byrne, meanwhile, made a beeline for the telegraph office to make sure that Gill hadn’t dashed there to send an alarm to the next town. Dan and Steve remained with the prisoners who, having been stood drinks since the beginning of their captivity, were now a drunken rabble.
    Only Mrs Gill was home. She came out and was introduced by Richards, who told her, ‘Don’t be afraid, this is Kelly.’
    ‘I am not afraid,’ she replied.
    Kelly’s response was conciliatory. ‘That’s right. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you or your husband. He should not have run away. Where has he gone to?’
    Gathering more pluck by the moment she told him, ‘If you shoot me dead I don’t know where Mr Gill is. You gave him such a fright Iexpect he is lying dead somewhere.’
    ‘You see, Kelly,’ Living interceded, ‘the woman is telling you the truth.’
    ‘All I want him for is to print this letter—the history of my life,’ persisted Kelly. ‘And I wanted to see him to explain it to him.’
    Mrs Gill, however, declined to take the manuscript. Living’s nerves must have been beginning to fray. ‘For God’s sake Kelly, give me the papers, and I will give them to Gill,’ he exclaimed.
    After some hesitation Kelly handed the precious parcel to Living. ‘This is a little bit of my life; I will give it to you,’ he said, with an air of ceremony. ‘Mind you get it printed.’ Having received Living’s assurance, he continued, ‘All right; I will leave it to you to get it done. You can read it. I have not had time to finish it.’
    Back in the pub, Kelly once again enjoyed having an audience. ‘I want to say a few words, about why I’m an outlaw, and what I’m doing here today,’ he told his listeners, before giving anaccount of himself that mirrored the themes and sentiments of the two letters. He and his family had been harassed and persecuted to such an extent that it was not suprising he had become a criminal, and Fitzpatrick—that ‘low drunken blackguard’—had, by turning up at the Greta homestead and making trouble, been the real cause of the Stringybark shootings and all that followed.
    There is dispute about who we should consider the ‘true’ author of the Jerilderie letter—Ned Kelly or Joe Byrne—but the similarity between Kelly’s talk and its distinctive phrasing leaves little doubt about the matter. The Reverend John Gribble walked into the Jerilderie pub at the conclusion of Kelly’s speech. He later described how the outlaw, who was leaning against the bar, put his gun next to his glass and announced, ‘There’s my revolver. Anyone here may take it and shoot me dead, but if I’m shot Jerilderie will swim in its own blood.’ It is this extremity of threat, and the rhetoric of bloodin particular, that specifically echoes the Jerilderie Letter.
    As the gang members, who had themselves been steadily drinking throughout the