Order in the Court! Crime and Punishment in the Early Years of the Rushworth District by Alan McLean

Description Rushworth Court House was built in 1877, a simple but impressive and imposing building. It witnessed an extraordinary parade, initially arriving on foot or tying a horse to a rail or a tree. Brawling Chinamen fighting farmers, horse thieves, aggressive foul-mouthed drunks, passive drunks, cadgers, owners of sly-grog shanties, swagmen carrying more than their own goods (usually in a bottle), owners of destructive wandering goats and pigs, carriers who neglected to put their name on their cart, a man found at night in Wigg’s brewery, and a mother of 14 who failed to send her eldest child to school on the specified number of days. All passed through the court house door. This is a collection of newspaper reports revealing details which the editors of the day believed their readers would want to know about local crime, its detection, the apprehension of the supspects, the details of the court cases, and especially the verdicts. 9780649970110 Kirwans Bridge, Alan McLean, 2017