Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.18 #108 (May 1859).
Mr. Kelley—or, to be more explicit, William Kelley, Esquire, Barrister, of London—in the year of grace 1853, abandoned the musty inns of English courts for the dusty highways of Australia, with the purpose of seeing for himself what El Dorado was like. He frankly confesses that he meant to make a book of his tour; but ere he had gone far on his way the daily sight of lucky miners, digging and spending their precious dust, proved too much for his soul's equanimity, and he dropped note-book and betook himself to the spade and cradle, which seem to be the more important gold developers of that auriferous region.
To land in Melbourne at that time was to be transported to a new world, where all the amenities and many of the decencies of life were for a time intermitted, and the social organization resembled, more than any thing else, a vast "free and easy," in which every man dressed, acted, and lived as best suited his case-hardened idiosyncrasies. Fancy a spruce and elegantly-got-up cockney set down in the midst of a city of millionaire ragamuffins, who wore calico shirts open at the neck, parti-colored trowsers stuck into cowhide boots, and a jumper—a kind of Australian blouse—instead of coat; who talked in a hideous but expressive slang, wherein the mild term for whisky was "strip me down naked," and to be "stuck up" meant to be the unfortunate subject of a highway robbery; where every body drank, at all times and for all imaginable causes; and the ingenuity of the entire population, male and female, seemed to be devoted, with a perseverance worthy a better cause, to the invention of new and outré oaths and curses; "D-mn you!" being the commonplace salutation between friends, strengthened, on meeting after a lengthened separation, by an added force of adjective profanities; which the reader will excuse us from here jotting down, as to do justice to the subject would require that they should be printed in red ink—fancy, we say, a white-shirted, kid-gloved gentleman from the fashionable quarter of London set down in such a concourse, and you have Mr. Kelley's situation.
"Here, my lad, do you desire a job?" he inquired of a young fellow who was complacently watching the landing of the passengers.
"What sort?"
"Just to carry a carpet-bag."
"Will it want two to take it?"
"No."
"Then take it yourself," was the cool reply, which ended this initiatory colloquy.
A search for lodgings disclosed the architectural condition of the town. Where frame shanties had taken the place of tents—which was by no means generally the case—these huts were built in the slenderest manner, just sufficient to shed the rain, but freely admitting air and light. The partitions between the different houses in a block were invariably of sized cotton cloth, which admitted the convenience of conversing with your neighbor without the trouble of leaving your apartment. Mr. Kelley notices, however, this indelicate drawback, that, if your candle happened at bed-time to be extinguished first, you were likely to be startled by the shadowy phantom of Mrs. or Miss A B C, next door, in her night-dress, preparing for the slumber of innocence. For one of these rather social tenements the moderate sum of $1000 per annum was charged, and at this rate they were eagerly snatched up. The most convenient feature of these houses was the floor, which was laid upon the hen-coop principle, with proper gaps between the planks, through which all garbage as well as various smaller articles of household use were prone to disappear.
Being lodged, our friend devoted himself assiduously to obtaining glimpses at the Australian "Elephant." With gold so plentiful and necessaries so scarce, of course every thing was high. The first essay at marketing revealed the facts, portentous to a moderate purse, that a small load of green fire-wood was worth $17; a small barrel of water, $2; a pair of fowls, $8; eggs, $4 per dozen; cabbages, 60 cents per head; potatoes, 12 cents per pound; while turkeys were held at altogether fancy prices, seventeen dollars being refused for a fair sample. Such prices were readily paid by men and women whose wealth was as boundless as sudden. In the fashionable shops (and there were such) no article was ever found fault with or rejected, unless, in a fit of absence, the shopman happened to ask a low price for it—say two hundred per cent. above cost. Mr. Kelley relates a funny story of a generous digger, shopping with his dulcinea, and overhearing a lady (a real lady), after examining a piece of dress-silk, put it down, with the remark that it was too expensive; whereupon the gallant fellow immediately ordered two dress-patterns to be cut off, and tried very hard to force them upon her as a free gift.
The lion of the neighborhood in which our traveler had temporarily established himself was a digger, who seems to have been a fair specimen brick of the Australian social edifice. His wife had "evenings at home" in her shanty, and every day, about noon, a Clarence and pair of horses drew up in the deep mud opposite the shanty door, to take them out for a suburban airing and a round of the fashionable drinking saloons, whence this generous couple generally brought back a select circle of beery friends. These were kept for a strong (mixed) tea, and sent off in a private coach, kept for that purpose, as soon as drunkenness supervened; the coachman receiving general instructions to drop his fares "any where on the north side of Prince's Bridge." These jaunts cost the moderate sum of twenty-five dollars per day. When the digger was laid up with a headache, his lady employed herself in "getting up a few of her light things;" and for this purpose she arrayed herself in a satin gown stained with beer and rum, a pair of massive bracelets, and a heavy watch-chain about her neck, to which was attached a heavier gold repeater. Thus dressed, with her hair done up in a hard knot and stayed with a pearl-headed gold pin, this virtuous woman stood at the washtub before the front door, up to her elbows in soap-lather, and proudly "did up her light things."
Business could not, of course, be more brisk than in a community where every other man was a millionaire. But the trade in horses was more money-making than any other. The common practice in the outlying districts of misappropriating horse-flesh, of course made the trade all the livelier. "Planting" horses—which means stealing an animal and surrendering it upon receipt of a proper reward—was a common practice, which every horseman expected to submit to. Yet good horses were not to be purchased under from four hundred to twelve hundred dollars; and a year's keep cost not less than two thousand dollars. With this, the great horse auctioneer of Melbourne netted an income of eighteen thousand dollars per week, as commissions on sales, and this the whole year round!
The law was also remunerative, and in this wise, as a certain shrewd barrister explained it: An ordinary criminal case was as good as a year's income; for a cut-throat-looking client, in ragged apparel, by a simple surgical operation on his waist-band, would half fill his hat with gold-dust, or extract from a patch on his coat a flake of fifty pound bank-notes which would paper a room—both probably harvested on the highway. If there was an acquittal—which, for the sale of society, was not desirable—the enfranchised culprit did not stop to settle accounts; and if Justice asserted herself, there were rarely heirs to divide the plunder with the lucky lawyer. As for bankruptcies, here is a statement of accounts on which an enlightened court granted a first-class certificate: Liabilities, £5319 11s. 3d.; assets, £29 6s. 6d.; cause of insolvency, having accepted (but not paid) accommodation-bills.
As for other trades and professions, to each, it was remarked, was joined the business of drawing teeth—all the shop-signs, whatever may have been advertised for sale, ending with a notice that "teeth were extracted inside," some "safely," others "expeditiously," all "cheaply." The liberality of public sentiment was sufficiently indicated by an advertisement which appeared on the windows of an apothecary:
"TO BE DISPOSED OF, ON MODERATE TERMS,
"The first-class Dublin Diploma of the late Dr. T—r. Apply to his disconsolate Widow, at the Old Surgery in the Tent next the European National Restaurant,
"Clarendon Street,
"Emerald Hill."
But the great speculation of the day was in liquor. Bar-rooms, taps, publics, drinking saloons of every name, and all grades of non-respectability, turned up on every corner, and oftener. Champagne—sham in every sense of the word—sold at four dollars per bottle, ale at sixty cents, and the "nobbler" of brandy or other ardent spirit (nobbler being equivalent to a dram) was charged at twenty-five cents—all change to be taken in cigars. The most important business of the community was to have drinks around, and the minor affairs of everyday life were discussed while this first matter was being duly attended to. The theatres and all the other public places were literally surrounded with rumshops, and wherever you poked your nose you were met with an invitation to "walk up and liquor"—a request by no means to be refused, the digger code being, "Drink or fight." Ladies out on shopping expeditions were not above stopping by the way to "take a drain," and indeed sometimes invited their male friends to join them in the social glass. On such occasions there was no lack of toasts. "Here's the health of Molly Connor," roared out one of her boarders, remarking at the same time that "it would be all the better if there was a little more stringth in her tay, but not quite so much in her butther." To which Molly, after due acknowledgment of the preliminary spirituous honor, replied that she "was no ways behoulden to Dennis Brady, for the divil's mother wouldn't plaze him. Tay nor coffee was no good if the spoon didn't stand up in the middle of the cup; though the drop he got onct a year in Mayo was too weak to run out o' the spout!"
"Here's to your hearty d—tion!" said a digger, nodding smilingly at the landlord, a companion adding soberly, "Soon and suddint," as he drained his glass.
Of course there was a theatre; and a very popular place of amusement it was. Its front was illumined by a plentiful supply of fat-cans with rags for wicks—serving instead of gas. These shed a lurid light upon a huge mud-puddle which covered the area in the immediate front of the doors. Through this puddle sturdy diggers waded knee-deep, with their dulcineas in their arms, to the dress-circle entrance. A favored few, owning private boxes, had the right of a private entrée through an adjoining bar-room, where, of course, there was a preliminary Champagne "shout;" a shout being, in the Australian vernacular, a call for drinks around at the expense of one of the company.
The play was Hamlet. Paying five shillings into an aperture which smelled like the bunghole of a stale brandy-cask, our sight-seer made his way into the pit. He found the chandelier lights obscured by a cloud of tobacco-smoke, through which he perceived, in front of the curtain, the orchestra, consisting of a cracked flageolet, a wheazy violin, and a bass drum. The pit was filled with mechanics and their colonial wives. The dress-circle was monopolized by florid-looking women with too low satin dresses, some in their smeared hair, with their pinned bonnets dangling in front of the boxes; others crowned with tiaras, like rose-bushes in full bearing; all hung round with chains, watches, collars, and bracelets of ponderous gold. Their lords in waiting were habited either in tartan "jumpers," or in red flannel shirts, and killed the dreary hour before the play by smoking short pipes, and offering occasional delicate (or indelicate) attentions to their companions, which frequently brought down the house before the rising of the curtain. The upper tier was filled with shrieking Bedouins of the streets, acting as bear-leaders to stupid stock drivers from the interior, or to a heavy class of digger, who gaped and stared in hiccuping admiration at nothing in particular, d—ing, by turns, every portion of his internal anatomy, from the liver all around, "if ever he seed any thing like it afore." There Was an unintermitted and tumultuous uproar, consisting of yells of recognition, such as "d.—your bloody eyes, Bill, is that you?" and "Polly, bless your ugly mug, how's your coppers?" These mixed with groans, barks, crows, and a thumping and stamping which made the chandelier quiver.
In the midst of this hurricane a man in the pit was seen to stand up on his seat, with his back to the orchestra, and gesticulate earnestly as if to obtain a hearing. At first his object was misunderstood, and he was variously suggested as a "target for an empty bottle," a "subject for cowhiding," or an embassador to the infernal regions; but there was about him a pertinacious suavity, which, after a time, induced a general silence. With a profound bow, he then said, "Ladies and gemmen, I thank you for your kindness—I am, in fact, obliged to you. [Loud cheers.] I suppose you all recolleet me; if not, I beg to inform you that I am Tim Jones who kept the shaving shop in Flinder's Lane. [Applause.] I'm just come from the famous Eagle Hawk, where I dug up one hundred and fifty ounces; and I'll be ——, for the future, if ever if ever I'll shave another of the lot of ye." [Thunders of applause. "Bravo, Tim! what'll you take?" and a tempest of tender inquiries after the health of the speaker and his nearest relations.] In the midst of this the curtain rose; but Bernardo, Marcellus, and Horatio failed to divide attention with Tim Jones until the ghost made his appearance in an absurdly comical rig. This produced a roar of laughter, with shouts of "Well, I'm blowed!" "Holy Moses!" "Does your mother know you're out?" In vain the ghost came to the footlights and pantomimically besought silence; the first act proceeded in dumb show, but amidst immense applause.
The fall of the curtain was the signal for renewed pleasantries, explosions of Champagne, and demands for nobblers. Toasts given in the pit were warmly responded to from the galleries; and healths were interchanged, in regular digger vernacular, across the house.
The second act began without attracting the slightest attention. The entrance of Ophelia was, however, the signal for a tempest of clapping and savory compliments, which lasted until the King and Queen and their train stalked in. This new party was greeted with another storm of ironical applause and Victorian double-entendres, provoking bursts of general laughter, during which an enthusiastic god was so impressed with the jolly-good-fellowed-ness of the King that he sent him down from the gallery a bottle of brandy by the thong of a stock whip. The second act of Hamlet was accordingly concluded by an exchange of hob-nobbing between the house and the stage.
The third act was transformed into an absurd colloquy between the Danish grave-digger and the gold-diggers from Eagle Hawk, made up of mutual inquiries about the depth of the sinking and the return to the tub, which so tickled Hamlet that he gave up his soliloquy and joined in the joking. After this there was a fierce row, caused by the accidental falling of a brandy bottle from the gallery into the pit, which was resented as an intentional insult. An escalade was essayed, and two sailors succeeded in climbing up the pillars which sustain the boxes; but instead of a display of bloody hostilities a festive scene ensued, which soon spread into a regular epidemic, during which brandy bottles were let down and hoisted up by lines made of knotted handkerchiefs, amidst a tempest of sentiments, toasts, and hip-hip-hurrahs. The manager at length came forward to invoke a hearing; but nobody seemed aware of his presence. Then poor Ophelia, with straws in her hair, endeavored to bring these lunatics to reason. After a world of courtesying, she did indeed effect a momentary silence, which was immediately taken advantage of by a riotous sailor, who roared out, "Come, give us 'Black-Eyed Susan,' old gal!" This produced such an unconquerable relapse that it was found necessary to cut down the remainder of the performance to the last scene, where the poisonings and sword practice brought the evening to an agreeable conclusion. But Hamlet, Ophelia, and the Ghost were obliged to appear before the curtain in undress, and there sustained the shower of half-ounce nuggets, which were then the convenient substitute for bouquets among digger audiences.
Meantime a dense crowd was guzzling Champagne in the "tap," which formed the most private and aristocratic entrance to this temple of Thespis, at the expense of a half-boozy digger of decent appearance, who "shouted" at the rate of two dozen bottles of the sparkling liquid at a time, remarking to his guests, as he threw down sheaves of bank-notes in payment, "Drink on, shipmates; I'm only a poor digger from Ballarat!"
Having satisfied himself with town sights, Mr. Kelley started for the nearest diggings, distant some days' travel. He remarked that the price of nobblers increased in regular ratio with the distance from Melbourne; and indeed enters on his journal, log-book wise, the course and distance made, with such affirmatory remark as, "The nobbler had now advanced to two shillings." He arrived safely, with no worse adventure than an unsuccessful attempt on the part of some highway gentry at "bailing up" his party. This is an ordinary process in the gold region, and not infrequently performed upon a houseful of people by a single courageous man. The feat is thus managed: The robber enters with arms in his hands, swearing to shoot down the first person who makes a hostile movement, and carrying the threat into effect promptly on the slightest motion toward resistance. He then orders one to tie up his neighbor, and goes the rounds till all are fettered, when he binds the last and perpetrates the robbery at his leisure. "Bailing up," though entailing somewhat of a loss and inconvenience, is by no means a dangerous adventure for a sensible man.
Arrived at Ballarat, Mr. Kelley found his friends by means of a notice stuck up on the post-office; and was speedily inducted into the mysteries of fossicking (which is the Australian synonym for prospecting), shafts and drives, windlass, tub-puddling, and shepherding, the last a phrase signifying the keeping passive possession of a hole, waiting for your neighbors to determine by their labors the luck at the bottom. He was brought into intimate acquaintance with the "Joes" (policemen), and was shown how an unproductive hole may be judiciously salted (sprinkled with gold dust), and sold as a valuable property to an unsuspecting lime-juicer (greenhorn). He saw the celebrated hole whence was dug by a lucky fellow a chunk of solid gold weighing 137 pounds. The fortunes of this hole show sufficiently the uncertainties of gold mining, and how near an unlucky man may come to a fortune without grasping it. It was first opened for a few feet, and then shepherded by three different parties, each going through the ceremony of taking out a few shovelfuls of earth to establish their claim, and then watching their neighbors. The last party sunk it sixty feet, and then, finding no promise, left it. It lay untouched for some time, until a party of "new chums" entered it, more to try their hands at shaft-sinking than with the hope of making any thing. But lo! after digging three feet, one of the dime-juicers struck his pick on a lump of something not hard enough for stone, nor soft enough for clay. Digging away the earth they saw before their eyes the glittering lump. After obtaining a guard to protect the treasure, it was quietly pryed out. Around it was found a litter of little nuggets, to the value of $1500. The big lump was worth over $33,000! and all obtained in a few hours.
Another celebrity was the "Blacksmith's Claim," a slovenly ill-sunk shaft, dangerous to go down, yet producing an almost incredible quantity of gold. The blacksmith's party, who were green hands, took out $64,000 worth, and then sold the hole and their tools for $360, to a party of ten, who, between noon of Saturday and next Monday evening, took out $60,000, then sold out for a week's spree, to come in possession again next Monday. The new temporary proprietors, twelve in number, took out £82,000, and surrendered to their predecessors, who after getting $45,000 more, in a week, sold out to a storekeeper for $500. He put men in to work the hole, who in a fortnight raised $25,000. One of the gang, an old hand, now secretly undermined the props which sustained the drift, on a Saturday night, and the whole workings fell in. He immediately staked out a new claim on the surface of the crooked ruin, went down straight as an arrow, and striking the old gutter, raised in the first tubful forty pounds of gold! He emptied the hole, getting altogether over $20,000. Thus a space of twenty-four feet square yielded the vast sum of over ¢292,000; an event unprecedented in the annals of gold mining.
The prodigious wealth of the celebrated Ballarat diggings may be inferred from these and other stories of lucky finds. From a patch of "waste ground" (i.e. the narrow strip necessarily left between two claims) Mr. Kelley saw fifty-seven pounds of gold washed out of a single tub! And this was only the first tubful from a space so narrow as hardly to admit the sinking of a shaft. From another claim $100,000 were got; while a party of Mr. Kelley's friends took out from theirs $180,000.
But if the returns were generally large, the labor required in sinking narrow shafts to the depth of often one hundred and fifty feet—the miners working twelve hours at a time up to their middles, often up to their arm-pits, at the dark bottom, in a yielding mixture of water and slimy mud—was utterly exhausting; and when to this was joined the chance, too often resulting in certainty, that the fairest prospects would be blasted—a rich vein turning suddenly from its direct course, and leaving a number of arduous miners at their bottoms in the lurch—it will not be denied that all earned faithfully their golden wages. In fact, Ballarat digging was no amateur work. A brace of jolly sailors, singing "Britons never shall be slaves," were interrupted by a yellow digger, just returned to daylight from a deep, wet hole, with "Shut up, you pair of bloody fools! Only take my place, below there, for six hours, and see whether Britons ever can be slaves or not!"
While a good many reaped rich returns for their hard and dangerous work, not a few persistently drew blanks in the great lottery. One tragic story was related of a company of young English gentlemen, all younger brothers of good families, who came fresh from Oxford to try their fortune at Ballarat. They had a moderate joint-stock capital on landing, and set themselves down industriously to dig. Claim after claim they dug down faithfully, but always came to a barren bottom. Meantime, live sparely and temperately as they would, their scant means were exhausted. Their few trinkets were sold, and they tried again, and with the sympathy of all the miners, for they were general favorites, and their ill-luck was known. Cheerful to the last, they worked down, down with a steady rapidity which augured of success; and one day, as the evening hour was approaching, a cry, a tone of exultation came up from the bottom of the shaft: "Haul up, my boys! haul away! The time is come at last!" They did haul heartily, and with gladsome hearts, feeling the heavy weight coming up. But, alas! when it came to the surface, instead of a bucket of gold it was the dead body of their dear companion! He had struck the barren bottom during his spell below; and detaching the bucket, in despair, fixed the windlass-rope about his neck and called upon his friends to strangle him. There was a sorrowing funeral; but ere the generous diggers could collect the sum of money with which they could have been started again—the same night, in fact—the company left the place. Let us hope they had better luck thereafter.
Besides fields such as Ballarat, there were a few spots, such as Mount Korong, where the nuggets lay loose upon the surface. But these were still riskier than the mining spots; for though a few very lucky hunters got immense wealth—one man having found a monster nugget, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, and worth over thirty-five thousand dollars—the great mass spent their money in a fruitless search, and returned, beggared and half-starved, to hard work but surer returns. This Mount Korong placer was discovered accidentally by a traveling party, whose teams got stuck in the mud of its vicinity. Impatient to get to the Bendigo diggings, the party spent their idle time in profitless prospecting, until, being about to make a start, and hunting up their stray bullocks, they came suddenly upon a conical, sparsely-wooded hill whose surface was literally strewed with big nuggets. How much this party got was never discovered; but they returned home without farther delay. Their secret was discovered by their imprudent boasts when out on a drinking jollification. A rush was made by a few hundred miners in the immediate neighborhood, who took off, without delay, all the auriferous pebbles they could find; many getting as much gold as they could carry, and one small child being seen toddling along with a fifteen-pound chunk in his diminutive arms. The strangest of all was, that though the ground was immediately riddled by ardent miners, no speck of gold was ever found below the surface.
Another rich district was the Woolshed. Here all who secured claims made large fortunes. Hands were employed by claim-holders at the wages of ten dollars per day, and found; and parties took out often five thousand ounces per week from a single claim. Here the greatest extravagance prevailed. It was no unusual thing for "bosses" (claim-owners) coming into town, after a week's work, to spend five hundred dollars on drinks round for their hands. One "boss" shouted to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, "for which," remarks Mr. Kelley, "the value received was probably within fifty dollars." It is evident that if miners made money liquor-sellers made more. The gains were so large at these Woolsheds, that though the overseers received from bosses one hundred and twenty-five dollars per week salary, if, on paying off hands on Saturday, they had from two hundred to four hundred dollars over in loose change, it was etiquette to make them keep it as pocketmoney. And when Mr. Cameron was, in 1855, elected Member of Parliament for this district, the men not only subscribed his property qualification at once, but shod his riding-horse with shoes of solid gold.
Luckiest among the lucky in the Australian diggings were children and sailors. So unfailing was this, that even a party of drunken tars who had been led by a shrewd knave to purchase a "salted" hole, digging manfully down, came upon a rich and paying bottom—to the rogue vendor's infinite disgust. And Mr. Kelley speaks of two ragged urchins, mere children, bringing to his quartz mills a bag of rocks they had picked up, which, on pounding out, produced no less than thirteen pounds of gold! The little fellows refused to tell where they picked up this stuff, and so shrewdly concealed their tracks that no one ever found out. But a few days after they returned with a barrow-load so rich that they were immediately offered six thousand dollars for it. This time the mill-hands determined to dog their steps; but the astute youngsters, instead of returning immediately, announced that "they were going to shout for all hands at the Harp of Erin," a tavern near by, and there continued their shouts till the self-constituted detectives were in a state which rendered the finding even of their own tents an elaborate puzzle; whereupon the lucky children disappeared.
Among the slight drawbacks to the entire felicity of Australian digging life must be mentioned fleas and flies. Beds, blankets, shirts, and persons were covered with the former; and Mr. Kelley's first experience of their powers and numbers disclosed to him the fact that a tent in the gold districts was only a flea-hole, millions on millions of these brisk little animals swarming in the warm sand around every fire. To new-comers this was an intolerable pest, but old stagers paid no attention to it. There seems, however, to be a difference even in fleas—a gentleman digger, on being offered a bed, when out on a visit, replying, "Thank you, no; I can't get on with strange fleas, though I don't mind my own swarm now I've got used to them." To catch these pests by the common method of running down individuals would have been a waste of literally golden opportunities. An ingenious digger naturalist, however, discovered a way of clearing a blanket or opossum-skin by wholesale, which deserves mention here. Ant-hills were numerous in the land; and before this digger went to work in the morning he spread his blanket over an ant-hill, and over this his opossum-skin rug, the flesh side uppermost. The heat of the sun striking on the hard skin, drove the fleas to the blanket, where their mortal enemies, the ants, stood prepared, in vast numbers, to pounce upon them and carry them off to subterraneous dungeons. The whole process was found to occupy but a few minutes, and the blanket and rug were "fit for immediate use;" as the ants only remained long enough to carry off the fleas.
Fleas by night, flies by day, and by myriads. In such vast swarms, indeed, that in the town-houses the use of a poison for their destruction became a nuisance from the numbers continually falling dead into and upon every thing eatable and drinkable. When the poison was used it was necessary to sweep out bucketfuls of flies two or three times a day. In the diggings they not only persecuted the men overground, producing by their bite a species of ophthalmia called fly-blight, but they descended after them in the holes, a larger species of the bluebottle persistently flicking out the dim light by which the men worked at depths of over a hundred feet. A most singular fact was, that these bluebottles increased in numbers as the symptoms of foul air became evident at the bottoms of deep shafts, seeming to grow more lively as the atmosphere became more intolerable; and so sure an indication were they of danger that their presence in numbers grew to be regarded by miners as a premonition of danger. It is remarkable that as the country was settled up the flies decreased, until, in 1857, the diggings were almost flyless.
Highway robbery was a profitable profession during the earlier years of the gold discovery; and great cruelties were sometimes committed on stubborn diggers who refused to give up their gold. Two young fellows being beset, had time to hide their precious dust, and resolutely declined giving it up. Hereupon the robber party placed one upon a frying-pan over a fire. The other, when he heard his comrade's flesh fizzing, could hold out no longer, but surrendered. Mr. Kelley was himself "stuck up," but by a gentle band. Riding along a lonely road he was overtaken by a party of horsemen, who pleasantly passed the usual compliments of strangers on meeting. After remarking on the fineness of the morning, the best-looking of the three handed over a well-filled cigar case, saying, "Bound for town, I suppose?"
Mr. Kelley. "Yes. But I do not smoke, thank you."
Gentlemanly Robber. "Well, Sir, as our lines diverge just here, be so good as to favor me with an inspection of your pocket-book."
The language was so good, and, the voice so mild, that it seemed at first a joke. A glance at the eyes of the party told the story, however, and Mr. Kelley without hesitation handed over his porte-monnaie and note-book, which were received with a politeness worthy a better cause.
A transient shade passed over the robber's countenance as he remarked their emptiness; but asking, with a keen glance, "All, 'pon honor?" and receiving an. assurance to that effect, he handed the empty receptacles back, saying, "When we next have the pleasure of meeting I trust your valuable possessions will exceed the sum of sixteen and sixpence;" after which speech the two cantered off. The best part of the joke remains. Charmed with his encounter, Mr. K. journeyed on and reached a small inn toward nightfall, when he determined to stop. Ordering supper, it was served in the common room, where he found three gentlemen seated enjoying the same meal. A close examination showed them to be his friends of the road. They invited him to a rubber of whist, and this produced a confidential talk, in which, while acknowledging themselves professional "overseers of the highways," they lamented "the unprofessional manner in which the business was generally conducted in the colony, and the unworthy persons embarked in it," which prevented them from giving Mr. K. even a safe-conduct.
A party on the same road, carrying gold dust on horseback, did not fare so well. They were shot, robbed, and tied up in the bush, where they might have starved to death had they not been luckily found. And beyond this, one of the robbers when tying up his man, happening to feel the ball he had put into his hip, had the cool cruelty to cut it out with his knife, remarking, "This will do for another customer."
We leave Mr. Kelley with two anecdotes of fashionable life at Melbourne. In the hotels, and at the balls and receptions of the rich but unpolished residents, the most curious scenes constantly took place. A sturdy digger, sitting at the dinner-table of the "Criterion," heard a French gentleman calling, "Garçon, bring me the carte." Whereupon the indignant digger proceeded to remind him "that he was up stairs, and if he wanted his cart to go down into the yard and get it himself, and be — to him, for an ill-mannered cub." But the richest display of digger ingenuousness must have occurred at a ball given by a certain alderman to Sir Charles Hotham, then newly appointed Governor. An elated alderman and his spouse carried off the Governor and Lady Hotham to the refreshment saloon; the alderman affably remarking, on the way, "It's hot, my lady." What followed was thus literally reported:
Alderman (thumping the counter). "Now, then, what'll your Excellencies have—stiff or limber?"
Aldermaness (giving a suggestive pluck to Lady Hotham's gown). "Take an old hand's advice an' try a brandy cocktail; it's mate, drink, washing, and lodging, all in one."
It was a trying moment for the Governor, a prim, well-starched old gentleman. But Lady Hotham was equal to the emergency, and, determined to achieve the good-will of the people, drained the cocktail as per advice.