'Full stop;' he must have a 'blow,'
but the d - - d things - his matches - had got damp, and so in a rage he must
hasten to his tent to light the pipe; that is, to put on the Yankee garb
and complete his forenoon work in a third hole of his, whose depth and shape
recommended him as a first rate grave-digger.
And what has all this bosh to do with the Eureka Stockade?
Chapter VIII.
Fiat Fustitia, Ruat Coelum.
As an old Ballaarat hand, I hereby assert, that much of the odium of the mining
community against red-tape, arose from the accursed practice of jumping.
One fact from the 'stubborn-things' store. The Eureka gutter was fast
progressing down hill towards the Eureka gully. A party of Britishers
had two claims; the one, on the slope of the hill, was bottomed on heavy gold;
the other, some four claims from it, and parallel with the range, was some
ninety feet deep, and was worked by day only, by three men: a fourth man
would now and then bring a set of trimmed slabs from the first hole aforesaid,
where he was the principal 'chips.' There was a Judas Iscariot among the party.
One fine morning, a hole was bottomed down the gully, and proved a scheisser.
A rush, Eureka style, was the conseqence; and it was pretended now that
the gutter would keep with the ranges, towards the Catholic church.
A party of Yankees, with revolvers and Mexican knives - the garb of 'bouncers'
in those days - jumped the second hole of the Britishers, dismantled
the windlass, and Godamn'd as fast as the Britishers cursed in the colonial
style. The excitement was awful. Commissioner Rede was fetched to settle
the dispute. An absurd and unjust regulation was then the law; no party
was allowed to have an interest in two claims at one and the same time,
which was called 'owning two claims.' The Yankees carried the day.
I, a living witness, do assert that, from that day, there was a 'down'
on the name of Rede.
For the commissioners, this jumping business was by no means an agreeable job.
They were fetched to the spot: a mob would soon collect round the disputed
claim; and for 'fair play,' it required the wisdom of Solomon, because
the parties concerned set the same price on their dispute, as the two harlots
on the living child.
I. The conflicting evidence, in consequence of hard swearing, prompted by
gold-thirst, the most horrible demon that depraves the human heart,
even a naturally honest heart. - II. The incomprehensible, unsettled,
impracticable ordinances for the abominable management of the gold-fields;
which ordinances, left to the discretion - that is, the caprice; and
to the good sense - that is, the motto, 'odi profanum vulgus et arceo;'
and to the best judgment - that is the proverbial incapability of all
aristocractical red-tape, HOW TO RULE US VAGABONDS. Both those reasons,
I say, must make even the most hardened bibber of Toorak small-beer acknowledge
and confess, that the perfidious mistake at head-quarters was, their persisting
to make the following Belgravian 'billet-doux' the 'sine qua non'
recommendation for gold-lace on Ballaarat (at the time): -
(ADDRESS)
"To the Victorian Board of Small Beer,
"Toorak (somewhere in Australasia, i.e., Australia Felix - inquire from
the natives, reported to be of blackskin, at the southern end of the globe.)
"Belgravia, First year of the royal projecting the Great Exhibition, Hyde Park.
"LADY STARVESEMPSTRESS, great-grand-niece of His Grace the
Duke Of CURRY-POWDER, begs to introduce to FORTYSHILLING TAKEHIMAWAY, Esquire,
of Toorak, see address, her brother-in-law, POLLIPUSS, WATERLOOBOLTER,
tenth son of the venerable Prebendary of North and South Palaver, Canon of
St. Sebastopol in the east, and Rector of Allblessedfools, West End - URGENT."
In justice, however, to Master Waterloobolter, candidate for gold-lace,
it must not be omitted that he is a Piccadilly young sprat, and so at Julien's
giant 'bal-masque', was ever gracious to the lady of his love.
"Miss Smartdeuce, may I beg the honour of your hand for the next waltz? surely
after a round or two you will relish your champagne."
"Yes," with a smothered "dear," was the sigh-drawn reply.
Who has the power to roar the command, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no
further," to the flood of tears from forlorn Smartdeuce, when her soft
Waterloobolter bolted for the gold-fields of Australia Felix.
To be serious. How could any candid mind otherwise explain the honest
boldness of eight out of nine members of the first Local Court, Ballaarat,
who, one and all, I do not say dared, but I say called upon their fellow miners
to come forward to a public meeting on the old spot, Bakery-hill. September,
Saturday, 30th, 1855. Said members had already settled at that time
201 disputes, and given their judgement, involving some half a million sterling
altogether, for all what they knew, and yet not one miner rose one finger
against them, when they imperatively desired to know whether they had done
their duty and still possessed the confidence of their fellow diggers!
They (said members) are practical men, of our own adopted class,
elected by ourselves from among ourselves, to sit as arbitrators of our
disputes, and our representatives at the Local Court. That's the key, for any
future Brougham, for the history of the Local Courts on the gold-fields.
It has fallen to my lot, however, to put the Eureka Stockade on record;
and, from the following 'Joe' chapter must begin any proper history
of that disgracefully memorable event.
