History of Australian Bushranging

This volume recounts the early history of bushranging in Australia. Excerpt: Owing to the stringent military rule during the first years of convict settlement, the unknown character of the country, and the absence of prey in the shape of men with money or other possessions (the aborigines being the only occupants of the soil outside the properly formed settlements), those who were called bushrangers then were simply men who had broken away from their gangs in the hope of escaping from the torture of labour under Government. The name has been made to carry a very different meaning since then, being applied to men who, some from choice and some from necessity, ranged the bush as freebooters, "sticking-up" settlers and travelers and demanding in orthodox style "your money or your life."