346 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



ru-quitable in its operation, and was exacted with exasperating insolence of language and 

 harshness of conduct was commenced at Bendigo in 1853, and soon spread to the other 

 gold-fields. Leagues were formed, and the Government, far from exhibiting a conciliatory 

 spirit, issued an order, in October, 1854, that the police should devote two days a week 

 to hunting down unlicensed diggers. Nowhere was the public indignation inspired by this 

 mistaken policy stronger than at Ballarat, and an accident kindled this indignation into 

 a flame. In a scuffle a digger named Scobie was killed in the Eureka Hotel on 

 Specimen Hill, kept by one Bentley, who was believed to be implicated in the murder. 

 The police magistrate, before whom Bentley was brought, acquitted him under corrupt 

 influences, it was alleged. Certain it is that he was removed from office ; he afterwards 

 migrated to British Columbia, embezzled some money there, and committed suicide in 

 Paris. Indignation meetings were held, and at one of these, on the i2th of October, 

 the hotel was set on fire and burned down. Bentley himself escaped on horseback. 

 Three men, not one of whom was concerned in the act, were arrested, and a public 

 meeting was promptly held, at which resolutions were adopted demanding their release, 

 and affirming the right of the people to the exercise of political power, and at the 

 same time asking for the abolition of the license fee. The three prisoners Maclntyre, 

 Fletcher and Westerby were conveyed to Melbourne for trial, and each was sentenced 

 to short terms of imprisonment. Another demand was made for their release, but was 

 refused, and the aspect of affairs was so threatening at Ballarat that two detachments 

 of infantry were ordered up from Melbourne. They reached that place on the 28th of 

 November, and were attacked by the diggers who followed them to the camp, from 

 which a strong body of police made a sortie and drove their assailants back. Two clays 



afterwards the local 

 authorities ordered 

 another digger- hunt, 

 and the military were 

 called out to support 

 the police. The dig- 

 gers resisted, and mat- 

 ters had now reached 

 such a pass that they 

 organized themselves 

 for an armed defence, 

 elected Mr. Peter Lalor 

 as their commander-in- 

 chief, and entrenched 

 themselves behind a 



stockade close to Eureka Street. On Sunday, the 3 rd of December, in the gray dawn 

 of an Australian summer's day, the military and the police, including a strong body of 

 cavalry, proceeded to attack the Stockade. Besides Mr. Peter Lalor. who acted as 

 commander-in-chief to the insurgent miners, the leaders of the so-called rebels were 

 Vrrn, a native of Hanover, an Italian named Carbon! Raffaello, Alfred Black, 

 John Lynch, J. W. Esmond, J. B. Humffray, ' James H. M'Gill, Curtain, Lesman and 



\ 



A GOLD ESCORT IN THE FIFTIES. 

 Adapted from a sketch by F. GUI. 



