1880 - The Bulletin - A radical paper hits Premier
- Wantabadgery- bushrangers - Captain Moonlite - Thomas Rogan - Premier of New South Wales - Sir Henry Parkes, - John Haynes - Mr Archibald -
1 February 1880 - A radical newspaper has hit the stands calling itself the Bulletin, with its first issue rallying against capital punishment and the hanging of the Wantabadgery bushrangers Captain Moonlite and Thomas Rogan. It reads: However unnerving the sight of a fatally wounded man may be to the ordinary spectator, that indescribable, livid, ashen pallor that comes over the criminal as he faces the hangman is still more sickening and awe-inspiring’. The proprietors have also condemned the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, for not allowing the press into the hanging (although it is believed that one of the owners and writers, Mr John Archibald, managed to get in last week).
‘As it is hardly likely that the Sheriff would on his own responsibility have excluded reporters from the gaol on the occasion of the execution of the Wantabadgery bushrangers, it may fairly be assumed that the action alluded to was solely a result of instructions received from the Colonial Secretary. Sir Henry Parkes, now a professional politician, was once a pressman himself, and not only a pressman, hut a newspaper proprietor. In the good old days, when there was as yet no such person as “Sir Henry”, the present Premier was editor of the Empire ... when the arrival of the mail was expected, plain Mr Parkes, with an eye to procuring and publishing the news in advance of his rival, used to “camp” at the Empire Office for days together and to sustain his energies with bacon ‘We don’t happen to know whether he retains his old love of bacon but we do know that he doesn’t take the same affectionate interest in journalism, or at any rate in journalists that he used to take. In Sydney the Press is now treated by the Government and the governor as if it were the most impotent and useless of all institutions.’
The paper’s owners, John Haynes and Mr Archibald, are experienced journalists who believe the Bulletin will be ‘excellent in the illustrations which embellish its pages and unsurpassed in the vigour, freshness, and geniality of its literary contributions’. Mr Haynes is an experienced sub-editor from the Evening News. Mr Archibald, only 24 years old, began working on newspapers at 14 when he started on the Standard, in Warmambool. He has travelled widely for his age and while working for Walkers engineering firm, he spent time on the goldfields as their agent. He is widely known to sympathise with the plight of the miners and prospectors.
He spent many months talking to the workers in the bush, the bush lawyers, hotel owners, Chinese, Aborigines and parsons. After his stint, Mr Archibald got a job on the Standard through Mr Haynes and out of their acquaintance came the paper issued yesterday.