THE Bowden Vigilance Society was a great success from the very first, and within a few days the adjoining suburbs of Croydon and Kilkenny asked to come in under our wing. It was quite convenient for us to take them, for many of our streets and roads overlapped, and we soon had a fine wide organisation, working easily and without friction throughout.

We were, of course, as I took care we should be, quite free from any trouble at night, and it soon became a proud boast with us that while the inhabitants of other townships and suburbs cowered shiveringly behind closed doors directly dusk had fallen — we went about our nightly avocations and amusements in a perfectly normal manner.

The Adelaide ‘Advertiser’ sent down a Special Commission to investigate and make known our methods, and the next morning, in a long three-column article, spoke most highly of the efficiency and thoroughness of our organisation. It described the perfect system of patrols we had initiated, the remarkable way in which all our arrangements dovetailed into one another, and it pointed significantly to the security and safety our districts had enjoyed, from the very first moment we had taken things in hand.

The article made an immense impression on the city, and were were inundated with enquiries from other districts.

I was asked repeatedly to speak at hastily summoned public meetings and nearly always complied with the requests.

Rather to my astonishment still, I found I was a first-class public speaker; indeed, I was more than that — I was an orator.

No matter how important and how influential were the other speakers on a platform, no one could quite so please the public as did I.

Big men of the city got up on their legs and with laborious notes made ponderous heavy speeches of the council chamber style. They bored their audiences to stiffness, and it would have been quite possible to photograph the relieved look on the faces of the crowd as they sat down.

But when I got up I always made things hum. I was light and easy to listen to, and spoke quite clearly so that everyone could hear. There was no hesitation at all in my manner, and I had no difficulty in choosing my words. I could reel off sentence after sentence as smoothly and as evenly as if I had previously written it all down. My audiences soon got warmed up. I could make them laugh, and I could make them cry. They would clap and stamp until the dust rose from the floor in clouds and then, with one quick turning of my tongue, I would bring so deep a hush into the hall that it could be almost felt. Their faces would grow still and stiff, their eyes would hang on every movement of my lips, and they would sit like statues, carved in stone.

I could play on all their feelings and hand out the sob-stuff or the burning words, just as I chose. When it at last came to the peroration, I would sometimes wind them up to such a pitch of enthusiasm that they would break into my last sentences with a hoarse storm of cheers, so as to make it quite impossible for me to conclude what I had intended to say.

The Lord Mayor remarked feelingly one night, “If ever the hour has produced the man — today has given us Peter Wacks.”

In less than three weeks all the suburbs of Adelaide had got their Vigilance Societies. Prospect and Unley came in last of all. For a few days they turned up their noses and would have nothing to do with us. On two consecutive nights, however, they each had their share of trouble, with the result that they very quickly and very humbly came to heel.

In due course all the local Vigilance Societies were affiliated together and I was elected President and Patrol Inspector-inChief.

A rich resident placed a fine car at my disposal so that, as I thought fit, I could visit all the Vigilance Society centres in turn and see nothing was being neglected for the public safety.

The days sped by and looking back down the newspaper files of the time, one can see plainly that the horror of the city was widening and deepening in intensity.

The crimes undoubtedly were fewer in number and their occurrence was more irregular and spasmodic now, but still the fear of sudden death was over all, and gradually, too, the dreadful feeling was eating into men’s minds that the murderer would never be found out.

Murder, too, was not the only thing to be dreaded now. Fires had taken to breaking out in altogether totally unexpected quarters and the railways and bridges had now to be guarded.

My mentality at this time is very difficult for me to analyse. As Chairman of the Vigilance Society I had most thoroughly and most efficiently organised the city patrols; as maniac under the influence of the drug, I was doing my utmost to bring all this elaborate machinery to nothing.

It was like some devilish kind of sport to me. I could work only on the darkest nights now, and even then I had to take terrible risks in getting about.

Any pedestrian by himself at night was always an object of suspicion and liable to be stopped and searched at any moment.

This, I knew, would have been quite fatal for me, for I still always carried with me my incriminating bar of iron.

One night, late, I was prowling somewhere round St. Peters and espied three men coming down the road in my direction.

I dodged into a garden to avoid them, but unfortunately a wretched little pom started yapping and the men stopped when they came up.

“I would swear I saw someone in front of us,” remarked one of them meditatively, “and if I did, he disappeared about here. Just flash your lamp will you, Josh? Yes, just over by that tree.”

I stood motionless where I was in the shadows, and should probably have escaped detection altogether, if the dog hadn’t seen me and rushed down.

I am always quick in my decisions and it was my quickness alone that saved me then.

I had vaulted over into the road quite five seconds before any of the men had realised what had happened, and was well away before they even thought to sound their whistles.

I ran down the road like a hare, but, unfortunately for me, it was a bad place to be chased in. There were villas almost on every side and no vacant lands with any chance of hiding if systematic search were to be made.

I intended to slip over into the Botanic Garden and chance it among the trees, but just where I was intending to get over, I heard voices and saw lights flashing, and so had to run on. My pursuers were still clamoring and whistling behind me.

The worst of it was that I was now running hard towards the city and any moment the police or patrols might appear and block my way.

Just when I reached the corner wall of Government House, I heard answering whistles in front of me, and saw the lights of two bicycles coming down towards me. As they came under a lamp I saw they were two of the cycle police.

Things were getting desperate, for I was almost exhausted with the long run.

I must get over into the Governor’s garden, I told myself. There was no help for it, although it was almost the last place I should have wished to take refuge in. It was the best guarded house in Adelaide, I knew, and there were always heaps of police within call.

I pulled myself up quickly by the thick strands of ivy and lay panting on the top of the wall. The ivy was thick and high there, and for the moment I was completely hidden in the shadow of a big tree.

My pursuers met the two policemen a few yards from where I lay, and the latter at once got off their machines.

“Seen him?” gasped one of my pursuers. “He can’t have got by here.”

“Seen who?” asked one of the policemen quickly. “What are you running after?”

“A man we caught hiding in a front garden. He ran like hell, directly we turned the light on him.”

“What was he doing in the garden?” went on the policeman judicially.

“We don’t know, but he cut directly we saw him, so he couldn’t have been up to any good.”

“Where did you lose him then — come on, be quick.”

“Well,” panted the man, still out of breath, “if he didn’t pass you, he must have got over the Governor’s wall here.”

“Why the devil didn’t you say that before?” cut in the policeman roughly. “Now look here — you help us, and we’ll catch him sure. Two of you run down along the wall there, and see that he doesn’t escape from that end, and you sir,” to the third man, “go back to the main entrance and tell the sergeant you’ll see there exactly what you’ve told us — that an unknown man’s gone into the Vice-regal garden. Be quick — don’t make a noise now; we’ll wait here in case he tries to bolt back the same way he came, which he probably will do.”

Off went the three men as they were bid, and the policemen were left alone. They propped their bicycles against a tree and crept stealthily to the corner angle of the wall.

“Not a sound, Billy,” I heard one say. “He’ll be somewhere close here. If he hears nothing maybe he’ll pop over again. He knows he can’t get away inside.”

They knelt down under the ivy and craning their necks out cautiously, expectantly regarded the long length of wall that lay round the corner.

Their backs were now turned to me, and I didn’t hesitate a second. I dropped softly down from the wall, landing without a sound in the flower bed just underneath.

For a moment I lay prone, and then finding my descent had passed quite unnoted, wriggled slowly and softly towards the tree, against which the two bicycles were still leaning.

I tried to make out which was the smaller one, but in the dark they seemed both about the same size, and I had to chance not being able to ride the one I was going to select. Lying flat on my stomach, I reached out and felt for the valve caps of the one I was going to leave. They were dreadfully hard to turn and it seemed ages before I at last heard the gentle hissing of the air escaping from the tyres.

To make doubly sure, I reached up to the wallet just below the saddle, and abstracting an adjustable wrench, thoroughly loosened the nuts holding the front wheel into the fork.

Then I rose up suddenly and, still without a sound, started to trundle the other bicycle along the stretch of grass running down alongside the path.

I counted on getting at least fifty yards start before I should be noticed, and I was not far wrong. Indeed, I might have sneaked off altogether, if it had not been for kicking against a stone.

I knew instantly they had heard me, for there was a shout and a damn, followed by a scuttling over the gravel path; the sound of a bicycle falling down and then — more damns.

But I had leaped on to the machine I had taken and was flying for my life back along the road where I had been chased. No one came after me. There was apparently no pursuit at all; I had evidently put the other bicycle clean out of action. I could not have wished for a luckier or more easy escape.

Having gone about half a mile, I turned off into a by-road and put out my light. Then I made off towards home, as quick as I could. I was twice challenged that night, but, happily, both times I had got well by my challengers, before they had caught sight of me, and as they were both times on foot, I, of course, got easily away again.

About a mile from home I knew of a long disused gravel pit, at the back of a small wood. Hardly anyone ever went there because it was supposed to be infested with snakes. At the bottom it was covered with a rank undergrowth that had been undisturbed for years. I chanced the snakes and cautiously carrying the bicycle down over the rather steep side, hid it carefully where I should easily be able to find it again. I had thought, when riding home, that it might come in useful on future occasions.

The next day all sorts of rumors were going about the city. The Governor had been attacked — an attempt had been made to get at his two children — a policeman had been killed in Government House — the murderer had been chased in the garden, &c.

There were many contradictions and explanations in the course of the afternoon, and most of the incidents that had been reported were later strenuously denied. But stripped of all gossip and exaggeration, at bottom, it was clear something had happened at Government House and the public were profoundly moved.

That the assassin should have had the audacity to penetrate into the Vice-regal garden, and, moreover, that having done so and his presence having become known, he should have been able to baffle and defy the police, struck the public significantly as a very terrible and incomprehensible thing.

The whole police organisation must be rotten, they said, and once and for all, special constables must be sworn in.

Pressure was brought on the Government from all sides, the Governor himself was reported as having vigorously spoken his own mind, and, in the end the authorities gave way.

At first they spitefully intended altogether to ignore our organisation, and just published a bare announcement that special constables would be sworn in in the usual way with no reference at all to the Vigilance Societies that already existed.

But I wasn’t having anything like that.

At once I got our head-quarters committee together and a great public meeting was arranged for the next night. We invited representatives of the Government, of the City Council, and of the police authorities to be present, and I publicly stated pertinently that reasons must be forthcoming from them why our organisation should not be adopted en bloc.

In view of the state of public opinion, they all thought it wise to accept the invitation, and, when evening came, the platform was crowded with the big-wigs of the city and the State. The Premier came in person, and the Lord Mayor and a fair sprinkling of the alderman and councillors were also there, and last, but not least, Major Young, the Chief Commissioner of the Adelaide Police.

I was introduced to the last just before the meeting opened. He was a fine, tall, good-looking man and gave me a careless, but very politely frigid bow. I knew that he credited much of the ill-favor in which the police undoubtedly then were to the remarks I had been continually making about them.

I didn’t know whether our guests by turning up in force expected to take a rise out of me, but if they did they were very much mistaken.

I was in the chair and I never for one moment let any of them forget it.

I rose to a storm of cheers and opened my remarks at once by saying I was quite sure the great audience then before me had not been gathered together in any spirit of antagonism to one another. Rather had they come in a friendly spirit of patriotism and loyalty to determine exactly what was the best for the care and safely of the dear city that they all loved so well.

They cheered appreciatively at this, and I went on to describe the peculiar situation that had arisen amongst us. One Man — most probably, only one man — was defying the community. He was setting at naught all those laws that they had framed for mutual safety. He was destroying the peace of the city and was making a nightly shambles of our roads and streets. He had been doing it now for over six weeks, and who he was, and where he was, and where he came from, were just as much secrets today as they were when he first started on his ghastly game.

As they were all aware, his cunning had been too great for the police. It was easy, I knew, to blame the police, but we must remember they were being called upon to face very unusual circumstances.

We must not, for a moment, be too hasty in discrediting the great efforts they had undoubtedly made to effect the arrest of the malefactor. But — and here I dropped my voice impressively, and spoke slowly and deliberately — while we must be kind and charitable in our thoughts towards those who were doing their utmost to carry out their appointed duties, at an admittedly very difficult time, we must have no pity whatsoever for any official blindness or red tapeism that refused to take advantage of one single thing that would make for the safety of the city. Otherwise, there would be placed round the neck of those willing and anxious to help a halter too heavy and too grievous to be borne.

They cheered enthusiastically here, and I gave them two instances as showing the inability of the police to cope with the present danger, owing to the paucity of their numbers. The first, when Policeman Holthusen was killed on the park lands, and the second, only two nights gone, when the unknown man escaped, so easily, from the Vice-regal gardens.

“Policeman Holthusen, gentlemen,” I cried, “died almost in his comrades’ arms, and the assassin, surprised and seen, seen, mark you, escaped without the very slightest difficulty through what should have been one of the most carefully guarded suburbs of the city; and that with lights flashing and with whistles blowing for assistance in all directions. Then the night before last — what do we have here? An unknown prowler, hiding and disturbed in a main road garden in St. Peters, is chased for upwards of a mile by three unofficial pursuers.

“The fugitive runs for safety, not towards lonely parklands, not towards the outskirts of the city — but right to the very heart of the city itself, just as if he were sure of there shaking off his pursuers. Well — after running as I say for over a mile — he sees two policemen coming up on bicycles, and is, no doubt, considerably surprised by their totally unexpected appearance”— the hall rocked with laughter here —“he climbs over, and takes refuge in the Governor’s garden. The police confer with the man’s pursuers and learn from them where he has gone, and take all the immediate measures possible to them to apprehend him. Well, what was the result? Not only did they fail to catch him, but he actually borrowed one of the policemen’s bicycles and went off without, I believe, even condescending to say good-night.

“Now, gentlemen, North terrace is one of the few places that is not under the protection of our Vigilance patrols. We have always understood Government House and its immediate neighborhood to be so strongly guarded as to render it quite unnecessary for us to take them under our special control. Had we done so, however, last night’s happening would have been quite impossible. The instant the first whistle sounded it would have been picked up in every direction by our patrols and a cordon would have been at once formed.

“Of course, we do not know who was this unknown man who climbed so quickly in and out of the Vice-regal garden. He may have been only an ordinary harmless pedestrian, frightened for the moment out of his wits and common sense. I say he may have been, but from the cunning of his movements, from his resource — do you know he actually stopped to let the wind out of the tyres of the other bicycle, before mounting the one he got away with — and from his general reckless disregard of danger, I am strongly of opinion that the man who got away last night is the very man we have been looking for all these weeks.”

I went on, that with dangers such as now threatened us it was indisputable that we had not enough police. Some of us had recognised it weeks ago — officialdom was recognising it today.

They asked us now for special constables and the whole question was in a nutshell.

Were the authorities to obtain these special constables from the single and spasmodic swearing in of individuals, a proceeding that might entail days and weeks of delay, or were they to take advantage of an already highly organised body and obtain all that they required in a single minute and by a single sweep of the pen?

Surely we deserve some consideration and some thanks from the authorities — nay, more — surely we deserve some honor and some respect, too. For had we not anticipated, by at least a month, the tardy movement they were now making today?

Instead of asking generally for special constables, the more statesmanlike and dignified proceeding on the par............