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with dilapidated shovel on his shoulder, and proceeds to dispossess intruders in summary manner. A great barney then ensues—Constable Derwent and his mate talk big. A crowd gathers round, and “A ring! a ring!” is the cry. The combatants have just commenced to shape, when the signal referred to at the head of this paragraph rings through the flat. On come the traps, in skirmishing order, driving in the stragglers as they advance, and supported by mounted troopers in the rear, who occupy commanding positions on the ranges. A great haul is made, and some sixty prisoners are marched off in triumph to the Camp, handcuffed together like a gang of felons, there to be dealt with according to the caprice or cupidity of their oppressors. Irwin, in his letters to the Geelong Advertiser, corroborates Benson’s account of the hunting mode, and gives, under date 23rd October, 1854, the following statement at a meeting in explanation of resolutions adopted in the Roman Catholic Chapel on Bakery Hill, expressive of sympathy with Father Smyth and of indignation against Commissioner Johnstone:— “Some time since Mr. Johnstone was in command of a license-hunting party, one of whom—named Lord—came up to a tent in which was John Gregory, a foreigner on a visit of charity to some other foreigners whose language he knew. The trooper Lord ordered the ‘——— wretches’ to come out of the tent that he might see their licenses. Gregory, the servant of the Rev. W. Smyth, had no such document; on seeing which the trooper damning him and the priest, ordered him to come along. As Gregory was not very strong limbed, he requested to be allowed to go to the camp himself, as he was not able to follow the force while visiting the various diggings, looking for unlicensed miners—so far right; but on Gregory’s appearing unwilling or unable to follow, the trooper ill-used him, and only let him off on Mr. Smyth depositing £5 bail for his appearance. At the police office, after being fined £5 for not having a license, Gregory was going away, but was re-called. On re-appearance, the charge of wanting a license was withdrawn by Mr. Johnstone, and one of insulting a trooper, put instead. For this, he, a cripple, was fined the original bail. In the whole affair the Rev. Mr. Smyth was certainly treated with but little courtesy, and the trumpery story of a cripple assaulting an able-bodied mounted trooper is too ridiculous to warrant serious attention.”

“Englishmen free from crime were at the mercy, in those days, of many demoralising and ruffianly policemen, who treated the diggers like felons, and were too often abetted by their superiors in this treatment of men thus practically deprived of two centuries of political progress. To these causes of irritation were added suspicions of corruption in the administration of the common law on the Ballarat goldfields, and this it was that precipitated the events which ended in the collision between