A few months ago I was having a chat about 'ye olden times,' with a very old resident of Molong, about the prevalence of sheep stealing in different parts of the colony. "Sheep stealing," replied the ancient one, sotto voce. Why, they don't know how to steal sheep now? Why, any of the old hands will remember Bill Denny, Bob Lamb, and 'Long Dick' stealing a whole flock of sheep from Frank Lord's Burrawang Station. They took them into the hills, and had them nearly all shorn when they were found. A couple of days, and they would have had all the wool off ; but the fates were against them. A black tracker, Jimmy Lord, was put on their track, and he never left it until he had run the game to their hiding place.
'Long Dick' turned Queen's evidence, and the other two got a stretch of seven years each to Van Diemen's Land, which was looked upon as the worst place for a prisoner in Australia in the early
days.
Old Frank the Poet, who had served a term in most of the prison grounds of the colony, on leaving Van Diemen's Land, when on board the steamer bade farewell to the island in the following couplet :—
Free man's heaven, convict's hell ;
Land of floggers, fare thee well !
And in another stanza he tells, of how—
They yoked us up like horses
To plough Van Diemen's Land.
So if there is any truth in Frank the Poet's, picture of this Siberia of the Southern Hemisphere, Danny and Lamb probably never lived to see the end of their seven years
From the Sydney Sportsman Wednesday 22 February 1905 p. 3.
'Long Dick' turned Queen's evidence, and the other two got a stretch of seven years each to Van Diemen's Land, which was looked upon as the worst place for a prisoner in Australia in the early
days.
Old Frank the Poet, who had served a term in most of the prison grounds of the colony, on leaving Van Diemen's Land, when on board the steamer bade farewell to the island in the following couplet :—
Free man's heaven, convict's hell ;
Land of floggers, fare thee well !
And in another stanza he tells, of how—
They yoked us up like horses
To plough Van Diemen's Land.
So if there is any truth in Frank the Poet's, picture of this Siberia of the Southern Hemisphere, Danny and Lamb probably never lived to see the end of their seven years
From the Sydney Sportsman Wednesday 22 February 1905 p. 3.
