Law and Order
With increasing prosperity and population Wagga and surrounding district became a place of interest to several infamous bushrangers. Notoriously the Wagga police magistrate Henry Baylis was bailed up by Mad Dog Morgan in 1863. Later when Baylis and some police officers tracked Morgan to where he was camping, the magistrate was shot and wounded.
Captain Moonlite after being released from gaol in 1879 for a robbery committed at Egerton, near Ballarat arrived on November 15, 1879 looking for work at Wantabadgery Station which is situated about 38 km east of Wagga. When work was refused, Moonlite and his band of 5 others returned and held up all 39 people at the station. Later one of the hostages escaped and three mounted police from Wagga arrived to be engaged by the gang in a shoot out. When the police retreated, Moonlite and his gang escaped only to be captured at another nearby property when police from the neighbouring townships of Gundagai and Adelong arrived. Moonlite was later hung for his crimes.
Ned Kelly's younger brother James Kelly, initially following in the footsteps of his elder sibling, and having just completed four years of imprisonmnet for cattle theft, was sentenced in 1877 at the Wagga courthouse to ten years gaol for stealing two horses from Wagga hoteliers. Unlike his older brother, when released he led a respectable life and lived until 1946.
Read more about this topic: History Of Wagga Wagga
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