340 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



He was forthwith handcuffed, and consigned to the care of 

 the police. A coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of 

 wilful murder returned against him, and I committed him 

 for trial the following day to Geelong. By some deficiency, 

 however, or contradiction in the evidence, he eventually 

 escaped with a verdict of manslaughter, and a light sentence. 

 I was convinced of his guilt. 



A few days subsequently to this an American, engaged in 

 a game at cards in a room in one of the small wooden public- 

 houses then common in the diggings, during some altercation 

 with his adversary, drew his revolver, and fired point-blank 

 at him across the table, but missed him; the ball, however, 

 penetrated the frail wainscot of the apartment, and killed a 

 man who was lying in bed in the adjoining room. Not con- 

 tent with this, he fired a second shot, which passed through 

 the hand of an individual who grasped the muzzle of the 

 pistol, and then made his escape from the place. He was 

 taken, however, the same day at Creswick's Creek, about 

 twelve miles from Ballarat, and his appearance before the 

 bench created a great deal of excitement amongst the 

 American residents, who did not consider this display of 

 violence, even with fatal consequences, at all in the same 

 light that we did, and were very much astonished when he 

 was committed to Geelong for trial on a charge of wilful 

 murder. This man's sentence was ten years' hard labour on 

 the roads, half or two-thirds of which would, in all proba- 

 bility, be remitted. 



The whole country for many miles around the great basin 

 of Ballarat, which has been nearly totally cleared of timber 

 over a circumference of at least ten miles, is one vast forest. 

 Trees (chiefly gum) of great size and luxuriance spread their 

 branches around, and the ground is everywhere strewed with 

 their blackened trunks, which have fallen victims to accident 

 or design, and where a bush-fire has lately occurred the tra- 



