Power was a desperate ruffian. He had been convicted several times of different offences. He was under sentence when he escaped from Pentridge, previous to his turning bushranger. He managed his escape in a most extraordinary manner. The prisoners were carting rubbish in a small go-cart from the stockade outside the walls. Power was one of the men drawing the cart. There was a large heap where they were tipping up the cart. Power got under the rubbish unobserved by the sentries. The other prisoners, taking no notice of him, drew the cart back, while Power remained in his hiding-place until evening. When the prisoners were mustered he was missing. Search was immediately made for him, and the spot where he had secreted himself was discovered, but he had disappeared. Information was given to the police, and every effort was made to find him, but without success. Power at once commenced his bushranging career. He told me afterwards his first idea was to get a change of clothing, as he had nothing but his prison dress. This difficulty was overcome by stealing a suit of clothes from a farm-house. His next trouble was to procure arms. He found a blade of an old sheep-shears, fastened it on the end of a long stick, and made a kind of a lance. With this weapon he started bushranging. Before long he came across an old gentleman riding along the roads, and he took a revolver and some money from him. Thus armed he began his career, which lasted over eighteen months. He was the most fortunate bushranger (so he considered himself) we ever had in Victoria, and he boasted of having stuck up thirty men in one day. The plan he adopted was as follows:--He chose a suitable position along a main road, where he could be quite unobserved by passers-by. He would probably take a coach road, wait until the coach came within ten or fifteen yards of him, then call out to the driver to surrender--"Bail up, or I will blow your brains out," at the same moment pointing a double-barrelled gun at him. The driver in every instance obeyed his orders. The bushranger would then order all the passengers to throw up their hands, and one by one to get out of the coach, and stand on the road, and turn their pockets inside out, letting the contents fall on the ground; Power himself keeping them all at a distance of twenty yards. He then made them march into the bush and sit down on a log about thirty or forty yards distant from the road. He was careful to select a suitable position in which to place his victims, commanding a view of the road as well as of those he had already captured. On one occasion he stopped the coach with six male passengers, and two females, and he remained on the road three or four hours sticking up every man who passed by, till he had thirty under his control; he then mounted his horse, which was hidden in the bush, and told his victims they might go home, he taking all the cash and jewellery they had in their possession.