When the Law Came to Niagara –

Niagara was one of the little towns worth a column in the WA Post Office Directory of 1899 following Bob Menzies strike in September 1894. The town’s life was short, but while it was alive, it ‘LIVED’.

Menzies find was described vaguely in the first announcement as “beyond the 90-Mile.” It was 40 miles beyond that point of rocks, so named probably, because it wasn’t 90 miles from any camp on the map of the Yilgarn. Menzies opened his show, afterward called The Lady Shenton, in September, and in October sent a parcel of rich specimens to the Bank of Australasia for the information of the Perth syndicate that had financed him. On the strength of the samples, a British combine offered, in November, £10,000 for the property, and was there with the money, ready and willing to buy “sight unseen.” In those good days of gold, WA did not have to borrow money. ‘John Bull’ brought it in with him, and was only too keen to give it away.

Niagara was opened in February 1895. An unusual strike, for the West, for the reef was discovered before alluvial gold was found. The prospectors napped an outcrop, impregnated with gold as rich as anything in the Londonderry. The six prospectors of the show had just been paid £180,000 in cash for the holding, and they had done no work on it, beyond knocking out a tent full of specimens.

Consequently, a rush started immediately after the Niagara men made their announcement. Siberia, the 90-mile, and Menzies providing the first contingent of an army of giants who padded, hot foot and eager, to a reported strike of gold, with no more than the report to rely on.

The nearest water was at Menzies, 40 miles away, and the only mode of transporting it was the pack camel!

There never was a surplus of water on the field, though bottled fluids were obtainable directly the camp was established. The whisky was of near kin to methylated spirit, but it was the best to be had there, and the men paid the price and were grateful. Sufficiently primed with it, an otherwise peaceful prospector would challenge a bull camel to a rough up under ‘Rafferty Rules’. But it had one good effect – it brought ‘The Law’ to the camp. Not in proper form, but in a form no the less.

One of the first matters that called for magisterial consideration was the disposal of a vagrant. How a man without means or mates had made the journey was the puzzle the boys could not solve, and with water at famine prices, the camp could not afford to keep him. While the problem was being debated, he went mad, and it was decided to rope him and pack him off to Menzies. He died on the way and was buried where he finished. Papers found in his camp at Siberia led to a correspondence with people in England, and, later, C. A. White, of Hunt Street, Coolgardie, gave it out that the vagrant lunatic of Niagara camp was the son and heir of an English baronet with interests in an estate worth, nominally, £4000 a year.

It was agreed that the methylated whisky had sent him “off his rocker,” and the camp decided to set up ‘The Law’, not so much on account of the quality of the liquor, but because of the mistake it had occasioned in permitting the pauper burial of one of England’s old nobility.

When Baronet’s Heir Was Buried as Pauper!

At a roll-up called by Ted Merral, of the 90-mile (Goongarrie), it was decided that Sir John Forrest be asked to appoint a J.P. The necessary letter was written but never posted. In a fortnight, an apparently ‘official communication’ conveyed that Charley Jones, who kept the cool drink shop, had been commissioned as one of Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the territory. Charley took office immediately, swore in a constable and Clerk of the Peace, and started on the work to reform of the town.

His first case – a frame-up of course – was an insanity matter. A prospector who was reported crazy was remanded for two days for observation. There was no lock-up, and Charley had to keep him in his own tent. He escaped at dark, broke into the cool drink shop, purloined all the hop beer, and took off to the bush. A warrant for his arrest was issued.

The next accused was charged with stealing specimens from his mate who was, of course, in on the joke. The constable proved arrest, and the evidence being conclusive, a sentence of six months, with hard labour, was imposed.

Pseudo J.P. and his famous “Murder Trial”

The prisoner used very offensive language and concluded by challenging the Court to fight him for ten quid, or any part of it. Before leaving the “dock” he openly stated that if he were held in the Justice’s tent he would do Charley in that night. For these deliverances’ he was charged with contempt, which he had aggravated by speaking of the Court as “the *#*#” fool who keeps the pop shop.

A second six months gaol was added to the first sentence. Charley was figuring out how he could hold his prisoner safely, unless he chained him to a tree, when Jimmy Wainwright the baker, offered to go bail for the convict, who was turned over to his keeping. The boys then went to some trouble to stage a murder charge, and were held up by the difficulty of getting a corpse, but the fates were kind, and helped them out. They heard a man had been killed in a tribal riot at Yerilla, some 20 miles away, and Charley, sitting as Coroner, brought in a finding of willful murder against ‘Jimbour’, one of the tribe. He formally declared him outlawed and warned all persons against harboring or giving shelter to the same. Then he offered a Government reward of £200 for the capture of the murderer, and for the finding of the body of the murdered man – which had not been seen by either Coroner or jury.

The commitment of the Government to a reward to be paid in real money then attracted attention in Perth, and the Crown Law Department sent I. J. K. Cohn, a real Justice of the Peace from Coolgardie, to make inquiries and report which he did. His report, on file, is a classic, in the tone of the times:

“The boys have been having a game with a fully qualified “%$!*#” flaming idiot.