This is the final in a three-part series recounting an horrific attack on a young mining agent in Daylesford in 1859.  He was tarred and feathered by a number of his acquaintances in the main Street of Daylesford.

Part 1 described the event and Part 2 described the Court case.  This final instalment recounts the verdict and sentences handed down to the miscreants. Newspapers of the time also provided commentary on the case. Then as now, newspapers praised the Australian judicial system, noting it’s superiority over the failed American judicial system and the demoralised American press.

The Verdict

The Daylesford Advocate Saturday 23 April

The Castlemaine General Sessions reconvened on Wednesday 20 April before His Honour Judge Bindon.

Mr Thompson stated the case for the prosecution, which he characterised as one of a cold-blooded, malicious and unprovoked nature – the act of hirelings who had done their disgusting work for gold – who, to receive a miserable pittance, had disgraced themselves and the victim.

Mr Aspinall rose to address the jury.  He said the tarring and feathering appeared to have been done in the most friendly manner, in the regular style of Daylesford intoxication, and which showed that the [victim] is accustomed to thrashing and unbuttoning, that that the hero of the press never cried out at all, but took down his trousers, and left his master, Mr Thompson, to get him satisfaction.  He concluded a powerful address by calling upon the jury not to listen to the statements of a person who he said had only received the chastisement which he justly merited.

Mr Thompson replied to the address of Mr Aspinall, which he described as untrue from beginning to end.

His Honour ran through the evidence, stating that if they believed these facts to be true, they had no other alternative but to find the prisoners guilty.

The jury retired to consider their verdict.  On coming into court again, they said they had not agreed, and wished His Honour to read to them the evidence against Patchill, which His Honour did, and the jury retired again.

On returning a second time, they found all the defendants guilty.

The Bench then retired to consider the case.  On coming into court, His Honour addressed the defendants with great feeling, stating that he and his brother magistrates had retired for the purpose of seeing whether they could discover degrees of guilt in the conduct of defendants, and they had come to the conclusion that there was.

The sentence of the court was that Cruikshank should be imprisoned in the gaol of Castlemaine for three months, Addis for a period of two months, and Reid and Patchill for the period of one month.

The Editorial

Mount Alexander Mail Friday 22 April 1859

The Daylesford drama has concluded at last: the defence has been heard, the jury have given their verdict, the judge has pronounced his sentence, and the accused are undergoing their sentence in Castlemaine gaol.  We are convinced that every right-minded person must feel that it is nothing more than the offenders deserved.  The outrage committed on the prosecutor was a gross and a cruel one, and notwithstanding the ability of their Counsel, there was in reality no palliation established, and very little of a defence attempted to be set up at the trial.

We have no desire to say anything which would tend to aggravate the bitterness of their sentence, much less have we any wish to bear hardly upon defeated men, but for the sake of law and public order we feel it is well that justice has overtaken these men.

This is a young State, and in new countries early impressions are very apt to become old habits.  Had this outrage been lightly treated either by the prosecutor, by the government, or by the judge and jury who tried it, unquestionably we should have repetitions in the same locality, and copies elsewhere of the filthy and disgusting assault.

In the United States, where those base and cowardly outrages, which have excited the scorn of foreigners, and the sorrow of wise and good citizens, are so frequent, they would never have grown into such frequency and strength if the law had been properly enforced in the first instance.  Any one who has visited the States of America, and has closely observed the workings of their institutions, would agree with us, that, one of the principal causes why the vindication of the law so often fails there, is the low and demoralised tone adopted by a large proportion of the public journals, bearing indirectly upon the verdict of justice and the administration generally of justice.

We dismiss the case from our columns in the hope, and in the strong belief too, that we shall have no repetition of such an outrage.  Should, however, men be found base and bold enough to attempt again the introduction of Lynch law into this colony, we promise them, and any such advocates as they may choose to employ, and the public generally, that it shall neither be burked by a drunken magistrate, nor bought off, nor laughed out of Court, but that it shall be denounced and prosecuted and punished as a brutal and cowardly assault, and a violation of British law, to be spiritedly followed up and surely, if not promptly, avenged.

Related Stories:
The History Files: Tarring and Feathering – The Incident

The History Files: Tarring and Feathering – The Court Case

From the Daylesford and District Historical Society.  https://daylesfordmuseum.net/