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(a folk song, no author credited)
Come all you Lachlan men and a sorrowful tale I'll tell,
The story of a decent man who through misfortune fell,
His name it was Ben Hall, a man of high renown,
Who was hunted from his station, and was like a dog shot down.
For years he roamed the roads, and he showed the traps some fun,
One thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and Jack Dunn.
Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree,
To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.
Ben went to Goobang creek, and that was his downfall
For riddled like a sieve was the valient Ben Hall,
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
That the seven police surrounded him as fast asleep they lay.
Billy Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead,
The troopers then fired madly and they filled him full of lead,
They rolled him in his blanket and strapped him to his prad,
And they lead him through the streets of Forbes, to show the prize they had.
Submitted by Graeme Nobes - garden00@magna.com.au
Paul says this is the first song he performed, somewhere in Hobart.
Some explination from Graeme:
- The Lachlan is a river in northern NSW
- Traps was a nickname for police
- Prad = horse (I don't know the etymology)
Billy Dargin was an Aboriginal tracker used by the police to hunt Ben Hall.
Such was public sympathy for Hall that Dargin became a hated man and was poisened
several years after Hall's death.
The practice of police displaying bushranger's corpses as trophies was not
uncommon, Ben Halls Body was paraded up and down the streets, Joe Byrne, a member
of the Kelly Gang killed at Glenrowan, was hung on the police station door the
day after his death and several others were decapitated after death so their skulls
could be studied by phrenologists.
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