Bushrangers

Australian desperadoes. Portions of Australia are covered by an almost impenetrable growth of copse-wood called locally the bush. The earliest settlers were criminals deported from England for life or for a term of years. As the country filled up with actual settlers and gold mines were worked, gangs of thieves and desperate characters recruited from the dregs of the convicts took to the bush and terrorized the settlers with their thefts, highway robberies, and bank raids. They were suppressed gradually by the Australian constabulary, and live now only in the yellow-backed novel for which they have furnished a fertile theme.