The clever and successful horsa stealer had hosts of admirers and sym pathisers, and it was notorious that many of the officials whose duty it was to suppress the practice simply con nived at it. They " winked the other eye" because it paid them to do so, and it was not until the " sixties " that the authorities adopted vigorous mea sures for its suppression. That and the gold discoveries produced an abun dant growth of bushrangers, or highway robbers, and many lives were lost in consequence.
Lynch was inherently bad, and even in the Goulburn district acts had been committed by him which if proved would have been followed by long terms of penal servitude. These lapses from the correct path took the form of horse-stealing, though on one occasion he was suspected of having shot at and seriously wounded a man. Under the circumstances he was not averse to leaving -a district where his name was getting into bad odor and going to a region where probably he would have much more freedom and less officials to evade if necessary. On the road to Barumba he plainly told Laurie he would not be over particular in dealing with his master's stock if he got a good chance to dispose of any. His com panion and friend argued against such a course, and for a space of three months or so the honest counsel pre vailed.
