Violent times in colonial Yass

Workers employed on back-country squatting runs lived harsh lives of isolation. It was no wonder that they often exhibited odd behaviour or drank excessively.

In 1853, a 35-year-old shoemaker named James Talbot and a carpenter named William Barry went on a bender. The two men shared a hut on the squatting run of N R Bernard, their employer, south of Yass, New South Wales. By the end of their bender, Barry lay drunk and unconscious on the hut’s floor.

A drunken quarrel had occurred some time during the bender. As Barry lay there, Talbot stabbed him twice in the heart.

Talbot then drunkenly attempted to cut the dead man’s head off but failed. So he waited until the body was cold before he disembowelled Barry and cut out his kidneys. Then, carrying Barry’s kidneys, he walked to another hut on the run about five kilometres away. There, he borrowed a frying