338 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



more orderly set of men than I had previously imagined. 

 Acts of violence arising from drunkenness, sly grog-selling 

 (a very pardonable offence), and horse-stealing, were amongst 

 the chief offences brought before the bench. Deliberate 

 murder was very rare, even where so many hardened and 

 desperate villains congregated like vultures around the car- 

 cass a simile well-illustrated by the old ticket- of-leave men, 

 escaped and expired convicts, who always accompanied a rush 

 to any new diggings in search of any plunder they could obtain. 



Amongst other instances of this exception that came under 

 my observation, the following may be perhaps not wholly 

 uninteresting : 



I was awakened late one very cold night from a sound 

 sleep on my stretcher, in a small wooden and shingled edifice, 

 that served me for parlour, bed-room, and office, by the 

 sergeant-major, who reported that a man had just come into 

 camp with the information that he had dangerously wounded - 

 another by accident, and that the presence of the magistrate 

 was desired to take the wounded man's depositions. He 

 further stated that they were both sawyers and splitters, and 

 resided together in tents in the forest, at some distance from 

 the diggings, in the direction of Warrenheep. It was for- 

 tunately bright moonlight when, accompanied by the camp 

 doctor and two mounted policemen, together with the man 

 who brought the information, we threaded our way cautiously 

 through the intricacies and pitfalls of the diggings, and gained 

 the gloomy shades of the forest. Having penetrated these 

 for a mile or two, we arrived at an open glade amongst the 

 trees, where several tents were pitched, and a sawpit and 

 other indications disclosed the occupation of the inhabitants. 

 Several persons were congregated around a tent, and upon 

 entering I saw the body of a man stretched on a pallet, 

 evidently stone dead. The shirt was open over the breast, 

 and a wound on the left nipple gave every appearance of his 



