[12] The ordinary price of good gold is 3l. 19s. 6d. the ounce. In the early days of gold-digging, the gold was never cleaned, but bought right off at a low price, 2l. 15s. or 2l. 17s. 6d. an ounce; the bankers thus often realizing immense profits.
CHAPTER XV
ROUGH LIFE AT THE DIGGINGS—"STOP THIEF!"
Gold-rushing—Diggers' Camp at Havelock—Murder of Lopez—Pursuit and Capture of the Murderer—The Thieves Hunted from the Camp—Death of the Murderer—The Police—Attempted Robbery of the Collingwood Bank—Another supposed Robbery—"Stop Thief!"—Smart use of the Telegraph.
In the times of the early rushes to the gold-fields there was, as might be expected, a good deal of disorder and lawlessness. When the rumour of a new gold-field went abroad, its richness was, as usual, exaggerated in proportion to the distance it travelled; and men of all classes rushed from far and near to the new diggings. Melbourne was half emptied of its labouring population; sailors deserted their ships; shepherds left their flocks, and stockmen their cattle; and, worst of all, there also came pouring into Victoria the looser part of the convict population of the adjoining colonies. These all flocked to the last discovered field, which was invariably reputed the richest that had yet been discovered.
Money was rapidly made by some where gold was found in any abundance; but when the soil proved comparatively poor, the crowd soon dispersed in search of other diggings. A population so suddenly drawn together by the fierce love of gain, and containing so large an admixture of the desperado element, could scarcely be expected to be very orderly. Yet it is astonishing how soon, after the first rush was over, the camp would settle down into a state of comparative order and peaceableness. For it was always the interest of the majority to put down plundering and disorder. Their first concern was for the security of their lives, and their next for the security of the gold they were able to scrape together.
When the lawless men about a camp were numerous, and robberies became frequent, the diggers would suddenly extemporise a police, rout out the thieves, and drive them perforce from the camp. I may illustrate this early state of things by what occurred at Havelock, a place about seven miles from Majorca. The gully there was "rushed" about nine years since, when some twenty thousand diggers were drawn together, with even more than the usual proportion of grog-shanty keepers, loafers, thieves, and low men and women of every description. In fact, the very scum of the roving population of the colony seems to have accumulated in the camp; and crime upon crime was committed, until at length an affair occurred, more dreadful and outrageous than anything that had preceded it, which thoroughly roused the digger population, and a rising took place, which ended in their hunting the whole of the thieves and scoundrels into the bush.
The affair has been related to me by three of the persons who were themselves actors in it, and it is briefly as follows:—At the corner of one of the main thoroughfares of the camp, composed of canvas tents and wooden stores, there stood an extemporized restaurant, kept by a Spaniard named Lopez. A few yards from his place was a store occupied by a Mr. S——, now a storekeeper in Majorca, and a customer at our bank. Opposite to S——'s store stood a tent, the occupants of which were known to be among the most lawless ruffians in the camp. S—— had seen the men more than once watching his store, and he had formed the conviction that they meant at some convenient opportunity to rob him, so he never slept without a loaded revolver under his pillow. One night in particular he was very anxious. The men stood about at the front of his store near closing time, suspiciously eyeing his premises, as he thought. So he put a bold face on, came to the door near where they were standing, discharged his pistol in the air—a regular custom in the diggings at night—reloaded, entered his store, and bolted himself in. He went to bed at about ten o'clock, and lay awake listening, for he could not sleep. It was not very long before he heard some person's steps close by his hut, and a muttering of smothered voices. The steps passed on; and then; after the lapse of about ten minutes, he heard a shot—a scream—and hurried footsteps running close past his hut. He lay in bed, determined not to go out, as he feared that this was only a ruse on the part of the thieves to induce him to open his door. But soon he heard shouts outside, as of persons in pursuit of some one, and jumping out of bed, he ran out half dressed and joined in the chase.