Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/72

 Although rough and adventurous characters came from all quarters to New Zealand in those early days, there was very little actual crime.

Notorious for a brief period in the later forties as a kind of second-rate bandit was Blue Cap. This rapscallion acquired his sobriquet from the headgear he affected—a species of French cap. Behind the vanity which probably induced the adoption of such a covering there was doubtless a design thereby to accentuate the ferocity of his aspect, and by advertising his notoriety strike terror into his victims, and so reduce his personal risk during his delinquencies. The two companions he selected were evidently so honoured for their achievements in most varieties of moral turpitude. All three were ticket-of-leave men from Hobart. What were their actual names I never knew, any more than were any of them ever even baptised, which is problematical.

The best I can say for Blue Cap is that he was a daring scoundrel, and had he not had the misfortune to be up against men of the sterling stamp of our pioneers, his career would certainly have been a longer one, and most likely a more distinguished one,