Paper no.21, 15 June 1880

Melbourne, 15th June 1880 / / My dear Frank / / I have just returned from the Depot & paid my usual visit to your grass widow & had a long chat with her. / / It seems that in spite of my urgent representations that most dilatory of Depts (the Public Works) have … sent me one of their officers to look over the premises you occupy & he seems to have done it in a very perfunctory manner. I am going to see Mr … today and will do my best to get the work attended to at once. / / … : O’Shanassy has been riding your grey horse & likes him very much & on Beckwith’s [?] recommendation I intend buying him for the Department for £25, the price you ask; he will be brought into the Depot on Friday for my inspection. We have a balance of £49.10/. for purchase of horses & we may therefore as well expend it. / / Ld Normanby has asked me if I have a Police horse I wd recommend for his use & I mentioned the big bay horse who had the bad hocks & I accordingly have directed him to be brought into the Depot for his Lordship to look at. I think, however, it is unlikely he will buy him. Since doing this I have heard from Beckwith that you had written to him to get the horse with condition with the view of sending him up to Benalla. Of course this shall be done if Ld N does not take the steed. /

I presume you made all the necessary arrangements with Chomley about the trackers; I have … in Seynour[?] to facilitate the … of … blacks so that Chomley may be back with them as soon as possible. Of course you saw poor Sergt Fawsett had succumbed at last; Palmer from whom I have just heard went up to attend his funeral. / / I have recommended Sergt Whelan for his vacancy & S C McGrath for the step of 2d Cl Sergt. / / I dined at Govt House last night, … & a few of the Ministers with their wives, the Mallesons,[?] Hubert [?] Powers &tc. - … slow on the whole, indeed the Govt House entertainments under the present ……are not lively. / / Old Mr Blair died on Friday night & his son James is in a very precarious[?] state; Keogh with his family arrived this morning in the mail & the … are that he will soon come into all Mr Blair’s money. / / I shot with your gun at the pigeon match 10 days ago but the stock was so awfully long I could not shoot a bit. I have had the gun cleaned by Rosier[?] & sent it back to your house. / / Most truly yours / F C Standish /

This is part of the digitized version of the Francis Hare Correspondence held in the University of Melbourne Archives. It consists of 54 letters and documents, of which this is one, from 1859-87 and received by or relating to Superintendent Francis Hare, one of the members of the Victoria police force involved in the pursuit and capture of the Kelly Gang. The collection complements Hare’s published memoir, The Last of the Bushrangers (London, 1892) and includes letters by some of the key figures of the Kelly story including the Police Commissioner Frederick Standish, Superintendents Charles Hope Nicolson and John Sadleir, Detective M Ward and John Sherritt, as well as items by Hare himself.