Neducator, Banker.

Ten days ago I predicted on this Blog  that this year the Kelly fanatics would mostly preoccupy themselves with attacking me rather than  responding to any of the issues that I was going to be raising. Sure enough, after I posted my discussion about  Morrisseys PhD thesis they proved me right by having another mad go at me, and posting personal attacks that I had to remove. They still haven’t made any attempt to discuss the Morrissey paper.

In my next post, after I had been accused of being a Fanatic I discussed the two features that define what it is to be a fanatic : beliefs that are extreme, and that are uncritical. To illustrate what I meant by uncritical I  wrote this :

The second important difference between enthusiasts and the fanatics is the way in which the belief of fanatics is uncritical. For example if someone were to suggest Ned was only ever kind and polite to women – that would  immediately be accepted.  No evidence would be needed to justify such a statement, because in the mind of the Kelly fanatic, its self evidently true. On the other hand, if someone were to suggest that on the contrary Ned was a bully and threatened and frightened women and children, that claim would immediately be rejected as Police lies, or the opinion of newspaper men who were in the employ of the rich and powerful Squatters. Furthermore the motives, family connections and identity of the person making that suggestion would be attacked. This is fanaticism, and I have been the focus of much of it for more than a year.

Much to my amazement, the very next day they proved me right again, providing us all with a perfect example of this aspect of their fanaticism, their craven uncritical acceptance of anything that fits their fixed beliefs and their prejudices.

This little gem began with the publication in the Wangaratta Chronicle on January 7^th of an article describing the discovery of a couple of letters, purported to have been written in 1879 by a Banker at the Benalla branch of the Colonial Bank of Australasia, in which various remarks were made about the Kelly gang and about the Police. The letters themselves were not published, and indeed the article states at the outset their origin remains to be established, but you wouldn’t guess that from the way the anti-MacFarlane Facebook page Kelly fanatics have managed to explode the few direct quotes  in this tantalizing article into a full-blown disproof of  Ian MacFarlanes  book. The way in which a few quotes from these letters have been used to justify all manner of claims about the author of the letter, the Kelly gang and Ian MacFarlanes book is an awesome wonder to behold, and a perfect example of how utterly these fanatics fail to understand anything about scholarship, about research, about objectivity and the critical use of reason.

“What amuses me  the most is these letters debunk many of MacFarlane’s theories” one breathless “amused” fanatic exclaims! That fanatic is the one who I think coined the term “neducation” and who has a webpage where he declares “Its time the facts were told” but here he betrays how little regard he really has for facts. Instead like the classic dangerously uncritical fanatic, he swallows a possible hoax hook line and sinker, for the simple reason that it fits his preconceived prejudices about Police and the Kellys . And he finds it amusing!! Someone else suggests theres no way there would be “cross referencing of this article on Dees blog…” 
and the response is: 
“No I don't think so Bob. Dee will just stick her head in the sand and pretend they are not real.”

Got that wrong too I am afraid – I know you all read my Blog but your memories must be poor: in case you missed my Post entitled “Fanaticism is a scourge”  or have forgotten what you read heres a quote from it to remind you:

"There is no webpage or book or You Tube article, or Kelly “thing” or place of any kind that I could get my hands on that I wouldnt read, photocopy, download, visit, buy or borrow if it was at all possible. That’s because I am not a fanatic with a fixed inviolable belief, but an enthusiast, and I am interested in what the truth about Ned Kelly really is, not in defending a fixed predetermined Creed about Saint Ned. Unlike Fanatics I cant tell if a book  has something to teach me, or if I like it or not until I have actually read it.”

The important point here is nothing to do with the letters – I will discuss them soon enough – the important point here is the use of reason and the need to be objective and critical in relation to historical evidence. What we actually have here is a newspaper article containing a journalists selected quotes from a couple of anonymously donated unpublished documents of uncertain provenance and authorship, and all of it channeled through a “self declared Kelly Tragic”  – and that is all. We do NOT have the letters, so it is very premature for anyone to be making claims, based on this one article from a provincial newspaper, that the letters somehow debunk anything, or provide “proof” of any particular view. People leaping to conclusions and making these mad claims are just demonstrating their complete failure to understand the nature of evidence and how historical research is done, or are just desperate and clutching at straws. A whole lot of research needs to be done before anyone can start making claims about the letters such as that they debunk anything.

But what of the letters? From what we know of their actual content rather than the extravagant claims made for them by the fanatics, they contain nothing that’s new, just the recycled opinions of a man, possibly a Banker, commenting on things that he has heard and read about. Anyone who would describe them as “undoubtedly a first hand account” is also talking nonsense – they are not, even if the letters are genuine, “first hand accounts” of anything : they are gossip.  

Now, being gossip doesn’t render these letters useless, or devoid of interest altogether because there may be truth in gossip, and even when there isn’t, it can be informative to know what people are gossiping about, and how and why rumours and urban mythology is growing and spreading. However, clearly this Banker would have no first hand knowledge of the Fitzpatrick incident, and he wasn’t at the Races himself to observe the Kelly gang and their racehorse, or witnessing Police conversations about their responses to reports about where the Kellys were. Instead he is said to be quoting to his mother things he has read in the newspaper, and so to say for example that “there was great dissatisfaction at the movement of the Police in the matter of the Kellys” is not any sort of revelation to anyone either then or now. The writer of the article introduces the word “cowardice” but I don’t see it in any of the quotes.

There are in fact a number of good reasons why anyone making use of this document needs to be rather careful, before jumping to conclusions, but these are red flags the Kelly fanatics have so far ignored. For a start, access to the document is controlled by a “self confessed Kelly tragic” who has so far failed to release the document for everyone to read in its entirety.  Would such a person release quotes that undermined the Kelly mythology? Hardly - so perhaps he is concealing those? Who would know?

Secondly the article says the letters are “misdated” to January 3^rd 1878 – because events recalled in them hadn’t occurred in January 1878, and therefore it is assumed it was simply an 19th century  “typo". Fair enough, an easy mistake to make at the turn of the calendar, perhaps even for a Banker , a person we would normally expect to be meticulous in his record keeping – but then, if the letters were not genuine could that be a clue to an error made by someone perpetrating a hoax and getting his dates all mixed up? Its possible.

Also VERY curious in my opinion is that a Banker, writing only three weeks after a sensational Bank robbery apparently makes no mention of it at all, but instead discusses a New Years Day horse race? Really? And again, the second letter written  a mere four DAYS after the second equally sensational Jerilderie hold up, again fails to mention it. Instead he discusses events from months before. One would have thought Bank robberies would feature big in the mind of a Banker, but if a forger had his dates mixed up then perhaps that would better explain such absences. 

To me, this letter has “Hoax” written all over it, but I am not going to jump to conclusions just yet. It may be genuine but if so, it adds almost nothing to what is already well known and accepted as either true or part of the popular understandings of the time about the Kelly outbreak.  The bit about the Kellys being at the races and running a horse sounds very much like urban myth making to me, and I will be surprised if that ever turns out to be true. To find out for sure we will have to wait till the letters are released , and the “Kelly Tragic” announces the results of his investigations. I don’t recall reading anything about the Kellys racing a horse, but that doesn’t mean much - maybe others have and can full us all in.

Finally, I note a prominent “ Member” on the Ned Kelly Forum, claims to have been doing his own investigations on this for a couple of days but so far has drawn blanks. God alone knows what hes been doing for two days : I discovered in half an hour something that might explain why he keeps drawing blanks, and which seriously adds to the odour of “Hoax” about these letters : there is no record in the Argus or anywhere else that I can find of a race meeting at Benalla on January 1st; the race meeting discussed in this letter is almost certainly a fantasy! On New Years Day there was a big race meeting at Flemington, but according to the Argus the Annual Benalla Race Meeting occurred on Friday 28^th February and Saturday 1^st March, 1879. According to the news report it was well attended.

Now THAT is amusing!