The brothers Clarke, of Manaro, although they did not belong to the Gardiner gang, were more or less closely connected with it. There were three of them, Thomas, James, and John, and their education was on similar lines to that which I have described as prevalent in the Western Ranges. They were cattle duffers and horse planters until the police began to enquire too closely into their mode of life, when they "took to the bush." James was probably saved from the more elevated fate of his elder and younger brothers by being arrested on suspicion of having been concerned with Ben Hall, Johnny Gilbert, and others in the robbery of the Cowra mail, but as the evidence of his presence on that occasion was inconclusive he was acquitted, and charged with having received stolen property, a number of the bank-notes stolen from the mail having been found in his possession. He was convicted, and was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude on January 12, 1865. He was probably kept out of mischief during the troublous times by this imprisonment. Thomas and John, the eldest and youngest of this interesting family, operated over the district in which the redoubtable Jackey Jackey first earned his notoriety as a bushranger, but they did not confine their operations within any strictly defined limits, and therefore they, as it may be said, overlapped with the Hall and Gilbert gang. The elder brother Thomas was arrested in October, 1864, on a charge of highway robbery, but contrived to effect his escape from the Braidwood gaol. He stole several racehorses from residents in the neighbourhood of Jembaicumbene and Mericumbene, stuck up the Araluen mail, robbed the Post Office at Michelago, besides sticking-up and robbing numbers of travellers on the roads about Braidwood and Moruya. On January 12th, the very day on which his brother James was being tried, he stuck up Mr. George Summer's store at Jembaicumbene, and on the following day he bailed up John Frazer and Kenneth Matheson, on Major's Creek Mount, and robbed them of £36 10s. in money, and a bank draft for a large amount. In these enterprises he was assisted by several young men and lads residing in the district. In April, Thomas Clarke, Patrick Connell, Tom Connell, William Fletcher, and two or three other young men were returning home from the racecourse at Bega, where races had been held, when Clarke stuck up a Chinaman, who was travelling from the Gulph Diggings, and took his gold and money. A little farther along the road the party met the mail boy, and Clarke compelled him to exchange his horse, saddle, and bridle for those stolen from the Chinaman. Some miles from the scene of this outrage the party met Mr. John Emmott, and ordered him to bail up; but he, having a considerable amount of gold and money about him, wheeled his horse and started to gallop away. By this time others of the party had become excited, and several of them chased Emmott, and fired their revolvers at him.