Pedder C.J., 28 January 1825

Source: Hobart Town Gazette, 4 February 1825

Monday. - Samuel Thomas Fielding, aged 21, and John Newton, aged 16, both late of Lemon Springs, were arraigned for feloniously stealing and driv[i]ng away, on the 1st instant, at Anstey Barton, forty sheep, worth £30, the property of Mr. Arnold Fisk.  Plea, Not Guilty.

His Majesty's Attorney-General (J. T. Gellibrand, Esq.) briefly introduced the facts, and called the prosecu[t]or, who said - I live about 6 miles beyond [Ge]richo, where I have a farm, and I am Chief District Constable of Methvin.  Besides my own sheep, I have 400 or 500, which belong to other people, on the thirds.  I have so had them from the 11th of last May.  Previous to the 1st instant, I had lost a great many sheep; and at that time they were not right.  I ought to have then had 24 scores and 17, excluding my previous losses of [6]9 and 80 besides.  I counted my sheep then, and there were 17 over the scores; but the number of scores has escaped my recollection.  I again counted them on the 24 instant, when eight were missing in addition to those that had been found deficient the day before.  All of them were marked with two holes in the right ear, the left ear being whole, and there was a pitch-brand of A F K connected on the near side about the ribs.  On the 3d instant I was sent for to Mr. Anstey's, where I saw the head and skin of a sheep, the first of which had my ear mark, and the latter a pitch brand, but illegible, on the centre of the near side.  The sheep I had lost were worth 15s. to 18s. each.  My house is distant about a mile and a half from the Road Gang's Hut's.  Some of my lost sheep have since been recovered, but whether the eight that were missed on the 2d instant were among them, I cannot say.  The number of those found is about 100.  I am yet deficient of about 22 to make up the 24 scores and 17.  The sheep which were given me on the thirds I was to keep for 12 months.  I never saw any sheep in the neighbourhood marked as mine were.  Mine were yarded on the night of the 1st instant.  The yard is 100 yards from my house and made of brush.  I never knew the sheep go out of the yard of their own accord unless they were driven about with intent to catch them.  I am positive that none of my neighbours use the same mark that I do.

Thomas Cummings ( King's Evidence). - I am a prisoner of the Crown, and on the 1st of January was working as one of the road party between Jericho and Lemon Springs.  The prisoners were in my gang and working with me.  We usually leave off work at noon on Saturday.  We left work at 12 that day; we went home, had our rations, and the prisoners with myself went opposuming. - It was about 3 when we went out.  Fielding proposed going - we had a small dog with us and a clasp knife - and he gave it to Newton.  I saw it before we started - we went towards the East of Lemon's Hill, and then turned towards the West.  We saw a flock of sheep in a bottom, and the shepherd with them; -- he was heading them towards Mr. Fisk's hut.  I did not know Fisk's hut then, but the prisoners did.  We afterwards on reaching the top of the hill saw the shepherd go into the hut.  When we first saw the flock, Fielding said, ``We'll have one of those sheep!"  When the shepherd entered the hut, Fielding said, ``now the shepherd's gone into the hut, now's the time to have one!"  We were 3 or 400 yards from the sheep, and perhaps 7 or 800 yards from the hut - there were trees between us and the hut.  The prisoners after the shepherd had gone in, separated about 40 sheep on the hill from the rest of the flock.  I followed the prisoners, but having a very bad pair of shoes, and being therefore in pain, I could not keep up with them.  They drove the sheep amongst some brush called Traven wood on Mr. Anstey's estate; I followed them, probably a mile or two.  By the time I got up to them--they said, `you may go; we don't want you;" they had the sheep in a sort of fold which was partly formed by two fallen gum trees angularly placed and made secure with brush.  The sheep were in it.  When I got up the prisoners had got one, and they then drove the others away.  Fielding had got the sheep.  He said to Newton ``give me a lift up." - The sheep, which was alive, was then placed on his shoulder, -- and he then ran to a thicker part of the wood to kill it. - Newton drove the rest from the fold, in a direction from Mr. Anstey's - I followed Fielding and saw him kill the sheep.  I was afraid.  Newton came up to me, and then passed on to Fielding.  When we went up the sheep was bleeding.  I saw Fielding cut its throat, when I was about 20 yards off.  Newton wanted to skin the sheep, but Fielding said, ``I can skin it better than you, have not I been a butcher?" - It was then dressed, cut up, and put into 3 shirts, 2 belonging to Newton, and one to Fielding.  The shirts were then taken up; Fielding said no man should take us while he had that knife.  We went towards home, it was between 5 and . - As we went we heard a horse. --  Fielding said ``drop it!" - we all dropped the mutton, and Fielding ran away.  The rider came up to us, and asked us what we had dropped? we said ``nothing."  Fielding then came back, and on being questioned as to what he had dropped, said ``nothing," also.  The horseman then went back to see what it was, and we went on.  Fielding said ``that's John Bowden!" - Bowden said ``if you tell me where you got it from I will not report it to the overseers; but if you don't, I'll take you before the Magistrates."  Mr. Bowden then rode off at full gallop, towards our huts. --  We then took up the mutton and ran in an opposite direction, where we hid it under some bushes. - We then took a log on our shoulder, and went home, to prevent being missed at muster time.  As we were entering the hut, our overseer came out of it with Bowden, and we were identified as the parties who had the mutton.  Lieutenant Evernden was then informed of the circumstance, and he sent out soldiers with dogs who found the meat, which I saw the next day at Mr. Anstey's.  The head and skin had been covered over at the place where the sheep was killed, but the next day it was brought to Mr. Anstey's  When the sheep was killed, Fielding said ``we must plant the skin or it will sell us!"  I know it was the same one exhibited at Mr. Anstey's.  When we first saw the flock, Newton said ``they are Fisk's sheep."

Source: Hobart Town Gazette, 4 March 1825

On Saturday last four men, named Samuel Thomas Fielding and James Chamberlain, for sheep-stealing, and Stephen Lear and Henry Fry, for burglary, expiated their offences on the scaffold within the walls of Hobart Town Gaol. - Let us hope that their shameful end will operate with advantage as a caution to their criminal survivors: for transgressions have become so numerous that the law must in future take its rigid course.