Then Mrs. Hardy arrived home from
Yarraman, and it became known that the injuries were not likely to prove
mortal; so the subject lost interest and was abandoned in favour of
Richard Haddon and his blood thirsty gang. 'The boy Haddon' had been
captured after a desperate encounter, and would be called upon to stand
his trial, along with the poor lads he had so grievously misled, at
Yarrarnan next day. It was conceded that he was about to meet his deserts
at last; but there was some slight difference of opinion as to the exact
nature of Dick's deserts. Some of the ladies thought ten years'
imprisonment 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.
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