Charles William Ferguson

“ Although Moondyne was regarded as a bushranger, I never heard of him baling anyone up at the point of a revolver and threatening them with their lives if they did not hand over their money and valuables. He was very cunning and crafty and more a petty thief than a highwayman. An an instance, I remember that my father lost a pony which had been bred in country familiar to Moondyne. The pony made its way back to this country and my father offered £3 for its recovery. Joe found the pony and brought it to Houghton and was paid the reward of £3. ”

“ Moondyne's most successful exploit in eluding the watchfulness of his custodians occurred on March 8, 1867, when he is reputed to have escaped through a hole he had tunnelled under the walls of the Gaol. He had received a sentence of some years imprisonment for a number of thefts but had escaped time after time, and at length, the prison authorities determined to put an end to his exploits. It is said that a big cage of strong bars was made, into which Joe, heavily leg-ironed, was placed during the day and kept at work within cracking stones. ”

“ Although not distinguishable by outward appearance from the hundreds of other cells in Fremantle Gaol, there is one cell which has a particular interest because of the picturesque with which it is associated.
'Moondyne Joe' was, perhaps, Western Australia's most noted bushranger. He was not an outlaw of the bloodthirsty type, such as the Kelly's, Steve Hart, and the score of others who killed and plundered on the eastern side of the continent during last century, and was notorious more for his prison breaking exploits than for his crimes. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1940, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”