Long Labor

Sir: The insightfully worded editorial ‘The Sins of Craig Thomson’ (22 February) has historical echoes. The original ‘Blind Freddie’, ostensibly Sir Frederick Pottinger, a dissolute, apparently incompetent yet colourful police inspector, failed to imprison the bushranger Ben Hall, when they both attended the races at Wowingragong. Promoted by dint of entitlement but eventually dismissed from the police force in 1865, he managed to accidentally shoot himself fatally in the upper abdomen (somehow missing his foot).