hand five £1 notes, saying, ‘There's the bail money,’ and off he walked. ‘Know you that man?’ said I to my astonished mate in misfortune. ‘Never saw him before in my life,’ he replied, ‘but he is a good fellow, and one of the right sort.’ Benson and his companion were both bailed, and, after the examination before the bench, the digger was fined in the amount of his bail, Benson escaped fine, and after some delay recovered his bail.” Such episodes abounded with variations in detail. From an unpublished manuscript by Mr. R. M. Sergeant, descriptive of the times under discussion, the following comic picture is taken:—
“We marked a couple of claims on the Eureka, and one or two at Prince Regent’s Gully. On returning home one afternoon we found our gully (Specimen Gully) surrounded by the force, on the hunt for licenses. I noticed our sod chimney smoking, and the hut door—an old flour sack stretched on a frame of wattle saplings—wide open. I expected that Joe, our cooking mate, could not very well escape two of the police who were marching straight into the doorway. I had approached within a few yards of the scene, license-paper in hand, when the traps stepped back, as I thought, rather hastily; and, to my surprise, were confronted on the threshold by a smart genteel-looking female, who politely inquired their business, and the next moment, espying me close in the rear, said, “Perhaps my brother can answer your inquiries, gentlemen.” The gentlemen, however, who were not amongst the rudest of their class, begged pardon and turned on their heels in search of more easy prey, while I proceeded to introduce myself to my newly-found sister, whom I then saw throwing up her heels and cutting most unlady-like capers round the dining-room table. In the course of the evening Joe intimated that as he had resolved never to take out a license, he should, if we had no objection, continue to wear his new style of attire, and that in future his name was to be “Josephine.” Mr. Sergeant gives us another lively view of the digger-hunting process:—
“‘Traps! Traps! Joe! Joe!’ were the well-known signals which announced that the police were out on a license raid, now becoming almost of daily occurrence. The hasty abandonment of tubs and cradles by fossickers and outsiders, and the great rushes of shepherds to the deep hole on the flat as the police hove in view, readily told that there were not a few among them who believed in the doctrine that “Base is the slave who pays.” Hunting the digger was evidently regarded by Mr. Commissioner Sleuth and his hounds as a source of delightful recreation, and one of such paramount importance to the State that the sport was reduced to an exact science. Thus given: A couple of dirty constables in diggers’ guise, jumping a claim; gentle shepherd[1] approaches,
- ↑ Shepherd, one who takes care of a claim, but does not actually work it.
