“It’s a thousand pounds alive or dead, for Dunn, Gilbert,
and Ben Hall”
Thirty years ago every one in the district had heard this
song, and all the sympathisers with the bushrangers (which
meant the bulk of the wild and scattered population) used to
sing it on occasion; but to-day the most persistent inquiry
has failed to reveal one man who can remember more than a
few fragments of it; and yet it is only forty years since Ben
Hall was shot. It is in the hope of rescuing these rough
bush ballads from oblivion that the present collection is
placed before the public.