Gangland Robbers by James Morton Page A

Thompson was arrested, along with his girlfriend FlossieHarris, in a house in Jones Lane off Little Bourke Street. Thompson was, reported the newspapers, given ‘a vigorous examination’, whatever that may have meant. There was other evidence: he had been seen loitering nearby, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, and was known to carry a pistol. Squizzy Taylor and Dolly Gray promptly decamped to Adelaide.
    Fingerprinting was still in its infancy worldwide and it had not been until the previous year that the admissibility of fingerprints as evidence in Australia was finally decided. Victoria’s sole fingerprint expert, Detective Sergeant Lionel Potter of the Criminal Investigation Branch, told the court he was certain the print was Thompson’s even though it did not tally with the one taken while he was awaiting trial in South Australia. Although the prosecution had experts from South Australia and New South Wales to back Potter up, Thompson’s counsel, George Maxwell, blew smoke all round the court, asking how Potter could tell the difference between the fingerprint of a Chinaman or of a Mongolian. The jurors were given a magnifying glass and asked to compare the prints themselves. Thompson had done what he could, by rubbing his fingers on a cell wall to smooth the skin and taking a bite out of one finger.
    From afar, Squizzy Taylor arranged other matters. Thompson’s girlfriend Flossie, who was at one time suspected of being the smaller person involved in the robbery, alibied him to an extent and Mrs Trotter was no longer so confident in her identification. After retiring for four hours, and to great applause from the public gallery, the jury acquitted Thompson, who was again loudly cheered in the street outside.
    He left for New Zealand, where he served a short sentence for theft, and then in August 1913 went to Charters Towers in Queensland, where he was arrested for being an idle person. The charge was withdrawn when he undertook to leave Queensland. He had with him a doll from a Christmas pudding that he claimed was his mascot of twenty years. And so Thompson continued his peripatetic life, with, after returning to Melbourne, ticket snatching at the Easter meeting at Williamstown racecourse in 1914, and being charged with attempted pickpocketing in 1915. He and a James Darcy hid in a crowd returning from the races, removing wallets from people boarding trams.
    Perhaps the Western Australian police had been right all along and Thompson was not a big-time crim. On the other hand, over the next decade, Squizzy Taylor, now generally thought to have been the second man in the Trotter robbery, acquired an almost iconic status.
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    First came the Trades Hall robbery.
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    EXECUTION OF JACKSON
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    Melbourne, Jan. 24.
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    The execution of John Jackson for the murder of Constable David Edward McGrath in October last was carried out at the Melbourne Gaol at 10 o’clock this morning. Jackson, who was shot in the leg in the shooting encounter with the police at the Trades Hall, Carlton, when Constable McGrath was shot dead, limped on to the gallows, and when asked if he had anything to say, exclaimed in loud, firm tones: ‘I only wish to thank the gaol authorities and warders for their kindness to me, one and all.’ In less than twenty seconds Jackson was a dead man. He weighed 10st. 1lb, and was given a drop of 7ft. 11½in., his death being instantaneous. He certainly died bravely. For some time prior to his execution he had been penitent, and took a deep interest in the ministrations of the Rev. Forbes. Jackson was 51 years of age , and leaves a widow and two children for whom he showed the utmost devotion.
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    This had been John Jackson’s first and last conviction; he was a man the police regarded as a master of his craft and one of the most talented safebreakers of the time. Along with his offsider Edward Parker, better known as Patrick Hegarty, he had been suspected of the June