happy? - May 5

Subject: happy? - May 5
From: Abby Sale
Date: 05 May 05 - 08:23 AM

Ben Hall was born in Breeza, NSW in 1837. He was ambushed and killed by a police party:

          'Twas early in the morning, upon the 5th of May [1865]
          That the Severen police surrounded him
          As in his bed he lay
  
                  "The Streets of Forbes," AL Lloyd, Great Australian
  Legend, & Tabor, Ashes & Diamonds
  
  ALSO:        
  
          Come all you young Australians and everyone besides
          I'll sing to you a ditty that will fill you with surprise
          Concerning of a ranger bold whose name it was Ben Hall
          But cruelly murdered was this day which proved his downfall
  
                  "Ben Hall"  
  

This song was collected by John Meredith from Sally Sloane who told him that Ben
Hall's sister-in-law was the midwife at her birth. In his Folk Songs of Australia,
Meredith quotes Sally Sloane talking about the bushranger: "I saw the place where Ben Hall
was killed. He lay down to have a rest this day and was ambushed. Yes it was near Forbes
on the Lachlan Plain. He lay there this day waiting for Coobung Mick to bring food to him.
Instead of bringing food he brought the cops. and when the policemen came they surrounded
him and riddled his body with bullets".
   From Mark Gregory's Digital Muse

Copyright © 2005, Abby Sale - all rights reserved