[Editor: This untitled article was published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 21 August 1886.]
[A lady not in the very best of circumstances]
A lady not in the very best of circumstances, and whose husband retired from the vulgar gaze for two years’ rest just after last criminal sessions at Jingalatonga has been in trouble over a horse. The animal lived in the kitchen, but owing to sorrow and infirmity it did not possess enough kick to demolish a saucer.
The local policeman ultimately received instructions to send the steed where the good niggers and old boots go, and accordingly he rolled up carrying a revolver and accompanied by a neighbour. Then he handed the weapon to the latter, and saying, “You shoot him, Bob,” retired outside and hung on to the fence with the convulsive grip of a drowning man clutching at a haystack. As the weapon went off he jumped several and a half feet into the air, and then on his friend emerging, they both wiped the tears from their eyes, and left.
About 15 hours afterwards, however, the horse resurrected itself and inquired what the row was all about, and the services of another armed desperado were invoked. A second scene of blood and slaughter followed, and the animal was buried to make matters certain, but the lady is haunted by a fear that it may rise again and keep on being killed, until the whole property is covered with dead horses and a small army of policemen are holding on to the fence.
Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 21 August 1886, p. 15, column 1
Also published in:
The Gippsland Times (Sale, Vic.), 23 August 1886, p. 4 (Morning edition)
Editor’s notes:
vulgar gaze = vulgar gaze of the public (in the context of a criminal trial, “retire from the vulgar gaze” is a reference to someone being sentenced to a jail term)
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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