Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 – 1946), Saturday 3 July 1880, page 22
STATEMENT OF CONSTABLE HUGH BRACKEN.
I am stationed at Greta, five miles from Glenrowan. At 11 o’clock on Sunday night I was called by Edward Reynolds, I was then at the police station, which is one mile from the railway station. I had been suffering from a bilious attack and was very weak. At first I didn’t reply, but another voice called me and then I opened the door.
Just as I did so, Ned Kelly presented a revolver at my head. He was masked with an iron helmet, and I didn’t at first know it was Ned Kelly. The mask was like a nail-can. He told me to ‘bail up’, and throw my hands up. I said, ‘You are not Ned Kelly; you are only one of the police trying my mettle.’ He continued, ‘Throw up your arms, or you are a dead man.’ I put one hand up, and he said,’ Put the other up; we want no nonsense.’ I complied. He then took my gun and revolver, and asked me for cartridges. I told him I had only those the gun and revolver were loaded with. Then he said, ‘I believe you have a very fast horse.” He referred to a horse called ‘Sir Solomon,’ which I possess. ‘Sir Solomon’ is crippled, but I had a good horse in the stable. He ordered me to lead him to the stable, and I did so. We saddled the horse, bridled it, and then he told me to mount. Ned Kelly was accompanied by Byrne. Both were mounted, and a man named Reynolds was with them on foot. Byrne took hold of my horse’s bridle, and Ned Kelly followed up behind with Reynolds on foot. We proceded to Jones’s Hotel. Robert Gibbons, another prisoner, also accompanied us. When we arrived at the hotel, we found a lot of people stuck up there. We were put in one of the rooms of the hotel. The gang were all armed with revolvers and rifles.
There were only three of them there, Hart being, I believe, at the postmaster’s house at the time. Byrne locked the front door, and I watched where he put the key. He laid it carelesly near the chimney. Believing a special train would be coming up with police, I secured the key when Byrne’s back was turned and put it in my pocket. I heard the special train arrive. Thereupon the gang went into a back room. This was my opportunity, and I quietly went to the front door, unlocked it, and rushed out. I ran to the railway station, found the train had arrived and the police on the platform; told them where the Kellys were, and asked them to surround the place immediately. After a few minutes, Superintendent Hare returned with his arm wounded. I then secured a horse and rode off to Wangaratta, about 12 miles distant. Told the police there what had happened, and sent telegrams all over the dstrict, and the police of Wangaratta immediately started for the scene, I returning with then. When we were held prisoners in the hotel Ned Kelly began talking about politics. ‘There was one —— in Parliament,’ he said, ‘whom he would like to kill, Mr. Graves.’ I asked why he had such a desire, and he replied, ‘Because he suggested in Parliament that the water in the Kelly country should be poisoned, and that the grass should be burnt. I will have him before long.’ He knew nothing about Mr. Service, but he held that Mr. Berry was no —— good, as he gave the police a lot of money to secure the capture of the gang ; too much by far. He then asked me ‘What was the policeman’s oath?’ I replied, ‘That policemen were sworn to do their duty without malice or favour, and to deal evenhanded justice all round.’ He rejoined, ‘Constable ——, of Greta, once told me that the oath was that a policeman had to lag any person, no matter whether it was father, mother, brother, or daughter, if they were but arrested.’ He also asked if there were not 19 or 20 men in the force who were as great rogues as himself. I of course conurred with him. He then said, ‘We are just after shooting one traitor,’ alluding to Aaron Sherritt, ‘and we now want that —— Detective Ward, but he is not game to show up. The next I want are those six little demons,’ alluding to the black trackers. ‘Then O’Connor and Hare. If I had them killed, I would feel easy and contented.’ He questioned the ability of the blacks to track in the Victorian bush,and he said he himself could track an emu in Queensland. The prisoners were then all called together, and Ned said, ‘If any of you ever hear or see any of us crossing the railway, or at any other place, and if the police should come and ask if you had seen shoot you down I like dogs. I do not mind a policeman doing his duty so long as he does not overdo it.’ I remarked that the police were only earning an honest living, and asked how he, if he was an honest man, could get on without them? He turned upon me, and demanded, ‘And am not I an honest man.’ I replied,’ I’m damned if you are,’ and nearly all laughed. Kelly next called a man named Sullivan before him, and said, ‘I have seen you somewhere else. Have you not been in Wangaratta lately.’ Sullivan replied in the affirmative.
Kelly then asked if he had ever been in New Zealand, and received a similar answer. ‘How long ago,’ he next asked, and Sullivan replied, ‘Ten or twelve years ago.’ In answer to other questions Sullivan said that he was in New Zealand when the notorious murders were committed there by strangling, but denied with truth that he was the Sullivan who turned Queen’s evidence on his mates, and who is understood to be living in this district at present. Kelly then said to me, ‘£8,000 has been offered for our capture. I promise to give you a similar amount if you tell me where that Sullivan is to be found, and the same amount for information as to where I can find Quinlan, the man who shot Morgan.’ Between 12 and 1 o’clock on Sunday morning one of Mrs. Jones’s sons sang the Kelly song for the amusement of the gang, and his mother occasionally asked him to sing out louder. Most of the prisoners were then cleared from the front parlour and the gang had a dance. They danced a set of quadrille, and Mr. David Mortimer, brother-in-law of the school-master, furnished the music with a concer-tina. Ned Kelly had the girl Jones for a partner, Dan had Mrs. Jones, and Byrne and Hart danced with male prisoners. Thinking they heard a noise outside the gang broke away from the dance abruptly, and Dan went outside. It was at this that I secured the key of the door. Doubling up my trousers at the feet, I placed the key in the fold, and when I heard the special arrive I raised my leg, picked out the key stealthily, unlocked the door, and bounded away. When the train was heard stopping Kelly said, ‘You will see some play now, boys. We will shoot them all.
When the constables escape was discovered Byrne, who noticed it first, exclaimed, ‘Let me but catch him, and I will make a Bracken of him.'”
Glenrowan 