ment with various floggings and other heavy penalties in the way
of solitary confinement, leg-irons, and an unvarying diet of dry bread
and water would be the severest punishment with which the youthful
malefactor could reasonably be afflicted. Mrs. Ben Steven stood out
resolutely for hanging, and, taking into account the thrilling report of
his crimes supplied by the extraordinary issue of the Yarraman Mercury,
many of the ladies were compelled to admit that this extreme view was
probably the correct one; besides, it possessed the advantage of
coinciding admirably with long-established popular opinion about Dick's
end. They generously admitted, however, that they were sorry for his
mother, poor lady.

The Mercury could not very well have made more of what it called 'The
Outbreak of a New Gang' in its Sunday extraordinary. A whole page was
filled with various accounts of the depredations of the gang, the
terrifying appearance of its members, and certain moral reflections
thrown in by the editor for the benefit of the Government and the police.
There was 'Mr. Bilison's account,' 'Mr. Hogan's account,' and 'the
account given by Master Mathieson.' Each of these persons had been stuck
up by the gang, and had escaped most miraculously after displaying great
daring in the face of a bloodthirsty fire. The Mercury exhausted all its
resources in the way of large black capitals and display type to do
justice to the biggest sensation that had come in its way for years, and
the appearance of the paper created the most profound amazement
throughout the town and district. Gable was described as a cunning
scoundrel whose affectations of almost imbecile simplicity might easily
have deceived intelligences less keen than those at the service of the
Mercury, and neither Messrs. Billson and Hogan nor Master Mathieson
hinted that their assailants were anything less than grown men of the
largest size and most ferocious type.

Alas! in Monday morning's Mercury the editor was reluctantly compelled to
repudiate the most enthralling portions of Sunday's story, but he still
took a very serious view of the affair, and vehemently contended that
recent facts did not in any way tend to relieve the Government of its
responsibilities in the matter of increased police-protection for
Yarraman and district. It had transpired that the perpetrators of the
series of outrages on the Cow Flat road were boys, undisciplined and
dangerous youths, fully armed and