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METHODS OF OBTAINING GOLD.

The extent of a claim is in proportion to the number of persons who have taken it up. All disputes were formerly settled by the camp officials and police. The latter were so unpopular however, that in some localities they durst not appear. The cry of "Joey" would rise every where against them, and they were driven away. The local courts now take cognizance of all disputes about claims.

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In the early phase of digging, "surfacing" or washing the soil on the surface of the ground in a cradle, and sinking pits, and washing the auriferous soil, were the only means followed for obtaining gold. At present machinery is used for puddling the clay. Two or three persons usually unite and purchase horses, and erect the necessary works. Those engaged in this branch of digging do moderately well, the returns being small, but tolerably certain. The whole of the auriferous soil partially wasted by the more primitive cradles is now being thoroughly cleared of its precious ore by the puddling machines.

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The gold diggers are most unsettled in their ideas. They are generally working hard with very unsatisfactory results. The paying claims are but few in comparison with the blanks. The most extraordinary feature in the gold mining population is the celerity with which they shift about from one locality to another. A spot may be uninhabited, wild, and dreary to-day, but in a few days after it may be transformed into a large city. The popular gold field, containing its thirty thousand diggers, is just as often left a solitary wilderness in as short a space of time. There are now great central depots on the gold fields, where large stocks of merchandize are stored, and ready to be transferred to any spot at a moment's notice. The digger can shoulder his pickaxe and shovel at any moment, and start for a new field. If he put "money in his purse,' as honest Iago said, he need fear nothing. He will find storekeepers, brewers, spirit dealers, and, in fact, tradesmen of all kinds, eager to welcome him when he arrives on the ground. Bad roads, flooded rivers, and a hundred minor difficulties will not prevent comme-mercial enterprise from following the rush whereever it may wander. The stranger who reaches a plain in the far bush, which only a short time before was destitute of any sign of civilization, will find himself in a comfortable city, surrounded by stores, hotels, and theatres. That great civiliser, the newspaper press, is not long behind, and often makes its appearance in a week or two after the great rush has set in for a new digging. It thus happens, that in an incredibly short space of time all the appliances of civilized life are gathered together.

But the most complicated, and by far the most interesting process of obtaining the precious tal on the diggings is from quartz, by aid of steam power. The alluvial fields may wear out; but there are miles of quartz reefs, which may take centuries to exhaust. Like alluvial digging, the return is precarious and uncertain. Some have made large sums, and many have been beggared by speculations in quartz-crushing. The art is yet but very imperfectly understood, and there can be no doubt but that the machinery for crushing the quartz will be improved, and that the process of amalgamation will come to be more generally understood.

There are numerous machines for crushing quartz, but the most common are those termed the "stampers" and the "rollers." The former is undoubtedly the most powerful, and is on the principle of the Chilian mill. Berdan's patent had a high character in California, but has not suc ceeded so well in Australia. The most popular, I believe, on the whole, are the machines constructed on Dr. Otway's principle. The quartz is thrown into a large cast iron basin, in which two heavy rollers revolve on their edges, and pulverize the quartz. Water is, from time to time, pumped into the basin, and when it is brought to about the consistency of soup, a plug is taken out, and the mixture runs into an amalgamating cradle below. The quicksilver is now added, and the amalgam is placed in a retort, and the gold separated. The majority of the crushing machines are driven by steam engines of from six to twelve horse power. The most effectual method of crushing that I have met with is Otway's machine, combined with stampers; one engine being quite sufficient to work both. After the quartz has been reduced by the stampers into small pieces, it is quickly pulverised by the heavy rollers.

* To "Joey" or "Joe" a person on the diggings, or anywhere else in Australia, is to grossly insult and ridicule him.

In those congregations, the majority are honest and industrious, but there are not a few who live by the vices of their neighbours, and even some who live by highway robbery. It is dangerous to travel in the neighbourhood of the gold fields unarmed. There are numbers of reckless vagabonds who infest the purlieus of these busy scenes, and live by plunder. In passing some of the roadside inns, the traveller observes two or three horses tied to posts outside the doorway, the owners are on the watch inside. If alone, and likely to have gold, it is far from unlikely that a mile or two forwards, in some lonely spot, two or three horsemen will dash out upon him from different sides of the road, and plunder him of all he carries. The majority of the diggers always carry loaded revolvers, and when suspicious looking characters approach, they draw them forth and have them in hand. It no doubt occasionally happens that this precaution prevents robberies, for the vagabonds who skulk about the bush are as cowardly when opposed, as they are cruel when they obtain the victory over peaceful and unsuspecting travellers. In the event of a brush, it is better to be ready and have the first fire.

When the gold diggings were discovered, the police force were disorganised and ineffective. Few persons of character could be induced to take

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service under the Government, and such as did enter into the ranks of the police were loafers and idlers, who were willing to wear the livery, eat the rations, and draw the pay of the Government; but who had no stomach for work. There was no general head, as now, and there were several kinds of police-such as Mounted, Border, Native, and City-all under different control; and the marauders were not kept in any check by them. The lower portion of the Black Forest, through which the high road from Melbourne to the Mount Alexandria diggings ran, was swept for months by an association of highwaymen, who stripped and plundered all who came in their way. Upon some occasions this gang stripped the victims of their cruelty of every article of clothing, and then fastened them to trees and left them to await their deliverance by the first person who passed. At the period referred to law and order were in abeyance, the diggers were plundered in their tents, and working in their claims, without any protection being afforded by the officials; and it was not until the police were organised, and placed under one general system of superintendence, that tranquillity was restored.

There are many persons very anxious about the extent of the gold fields of Australia, and the length of time which will elapse until they become exhausted. A wide difference of opinion prevails, some thinking the gold fields are nearly exhausted,

and many holding the opinion that they will be productive for a century to come. It is rather singular that the three great gold fields of Victoria, Ballarat, Forest Creek, and Bendigo, were discovered almost simultaneously, and that nothing like them has been heard of since; but gold digging will be followed by thousands of eager adventurers for years to come, even if the alluvial diggings should fail. There are nearly inexhaustible reefs of auriferous quartz, which will afford employment to any number of persons, and it is probable that many great improvements in crushing and amalgamating will be made within the next few years.

I am of opinion that it is fortunate for civilisation that the gold is not found in too great quantities; if such were the case, it would not only disarrange the finance of the world, but, as an immediate effect in Australia, it would absorb all the available labour in one pursuit, and internal improvement would be stopped. No persons of refined taste would remain in a country where labour could not be obtained; and the best class of colonists would leave. There would be no other order than the will of a lawless mob, and the fair and flourishing country would become a complete Pandemonium, tenfold worse than California. A wise Providence has so ordained, that, while the gold has done much for the material progress of the country, it has not impeded, but accelerated, civilisation.

IN MEMORIAM.

Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!— Shenstone.

Alone within this quiet room,

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!-Byron.

Watching this log-fire's ruddy glow,
Watching its shadows through the gloom,
As bright they come, as dark they go,
I sadly sit and think of thee,

Of days that nevermore may be,
Till through my tears this fire I see;
And thou art dead!

The rain is dripping from the eaves,

Low moans the wind the beams between, While sorrow silent sits and grieves O'er days that once so bright have been.

Like shadows flitting o'er a glass,

Sweet thoughts of thee o'er mem'ry pass,
While 'neath dead daisies and dank grass
Thou'rt lying dead!

Three years ago-three bitter years,
Thou sat'st this gleaming hearth beside;
This is thy birthday, love, let tears
Tell all that grief has learned to hide.
I call to mind in bitter shame
What once I was-what now I am—
Remorsefully I breathe thy name,

But thou art dead!

I ne'er was loved by one save thee,
In life's first flush, its dearer noon,

Our two hearts beat in symphony
Till thine grew cold-so soon, too soon.
I've met with want, and care, and pain,
Since then-I've lived and loved in vain,
And ne'er found truth like thine again.
And thou art dead!

Misunderstood by all, save thee,

I wandered through this world of ours;
I've found, as thou fortold'st to me,
So many thorns, so few, few flowers.
With weary heart and o'erwrought brain,
I turn me to life's tasks again,
And woo forgetfulness in vain,
For thou art dead!

Oh! little dreamed poor Love of this,

That we should part so soon, too soon, When in our dreams of fleeting bliss Life seemed one sunny day of June. Yet oft, when sorrow would repine, I think of thee and our "lang syne," Till mem'ry gilds this life of mine, Yet thou art dead! W. B. B. S.

THE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW.

THE Civil and criminal law of Britain and Ireland present a remarkable contrast, although it has been gradually weakened during the past thirty years. The civil law was wonderful for its delays-yet in | nothing are delays more dangerous than in prosecutions for debts, or quarrels regarding property. | The criminal law is, on the contrary, inexorable as fate, and advances with solemn, steady pace upon its subject, to acquit or to crush. The trial of William Palmer, of Rugeley, during the last year, afforded the longest delay of which our criminal law is capable from one feature in the case against which provisiou had to be made by Parliament; yet this trial came on, and judgment was executed, within a much shorter period than might have been occupied in preparations for the discussion of a warranty respecting one of that person's horses. By legal chicanery, and hard swearing occasionally at an affidavit, Mr. William Palmer might easily have postponed a trial at civil law against him for a sum of four or five hundred pounds, longer than he was able to delay the trial for his life.

Mr. Brown, her wealthy neighbour, was a share-
holder;
and it will not do now for Mr. Brown to
deny his responsibility, if the rumour was correct,
because Mr. Cameron deceived him. Widow
Adam must not suffer for Mr. Cameron's offence.
Mr. Brown may have a good action against Cameron,
but he has no defence against Widow Adam in
equity; yet, in law, he, and all those who occupy
his position, may be allowed to allege, to appeal,
to argue, and to reclaim for twelve months or
more; and they may be divested ere then of any-
thing that they ever possessed; although, if he, or
either of them, was charged with fire-raising, or
murder, or the like, and liable even to be hanged
by the neck, if guilty, the whole case would be
examined, and Calcraft would have done his work,
if his work were to be done,before May-day. We
are supposing what is commonly called an A B
case; and we ask whether, to the deep prejudice of
Widow Adam, the law does not consider Mr.
Brown's neck of far less value than his property.
In the matter of death or life it allows of no
appeal, while in that of gold, or houses, or lands,
it permits a man to appeal, not indefinitely, but to
a very ruinous extent.

A few weeks since, a case that has lived for
twenty-two years in an English court, between the
Bishop of Carlisle (officially) and the tithe payers
of a parish in his diocese, was decided against the
ecclesiastical superior. It would be impossible, by
any ingenuity, to postpone the decision upon a
charge of stealing ten hens, or ten thousand pounds,
against any of the parishioners for twenty-two
months, or perhaps weeks, although the courts
required twenty-two years to settle this tithing
case. Mr. Redpath, the late registrar of the Great
Northern Railway Company, was caught in fraud
some time after the managers of the Royal British
Bank were detected in their iniquities-or, to be
gentler, their irregularities. Mr. Redpath was
examined, tried, and sentenced, although a man
with abundant means to stay proceedings if money
could have stayed them, before the law had wrested
a contribution out of one in twenty of the share-proceeding against individuals.
holders of the Royal British. The law has not
decided, even yet, whether a certain number of
persons who held shares in that bank are liable to
pay calls, or are, as they claim to be, creditors.
They deny their liability, upon the ground that
they were cheated into the acceptance of these
shares. Many persons are cheated in a similar
manner. They believed the representations of the
managers, and wanted to make ten per cent. for
their money. But no person can earn ten per cent.
for his capital by doing nothing. He must either
take an extra risk, or do much work. These par-
ties preferred the extra liability, and now they
repudiate that responsibility. Their case is de-
plorable; yet it cannot be doubted that the Widow
Adam may have deposited money with the Royal
British, deeming it secure, because she heard that

The law had a very sure gripe of Mr. Redpath. He was within the four walls of a substantial prison. The law officers did not press his trial onwards with unbecoming haste; but we do not think that any reason existed for unusual speed in its nature. Very different was the case of the Royal British bank shareholders. The law had no hold on them. The public have heard repeatedly that the proprietary were falling into bankruptcy, were divesting themselves of their property, were leaving the country, and generally wearing out of a commercial existence; and that portion of the public who are creditors of these people, being depositors in their bank, became alarmed; and a number began to act for their own interests, who are, and were, censured by the lawyers for "The lawyers,"

in the last sentence, means "those lawyers" who have the carriage of the case, of the mortuum corpus. They see no cause for impatience. Everything goes on in due course. Other lawyers who have no business in the bankruptcy or the winding up advise differently, because they look at the matter from a different point of view. Divergens ab initio, of course they reach a conclusion in one sense widely different, and in another the samecosts namely. We do not quarrel with this fact. Men must live by their trade, and from the complicated and cumbrous mechanism of the civil law, and the care requisite to comprehend what nobody understands, we do not think either

* We understand that a decision has been given in this case, and that an early settlement is expected.

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attornies or barristers in England and Ireland, or their contemporaries in Scotland-an overpaid class.

The time allowed to the shareholders of the Royal British Bank, for making arrangements not to pay their debts, contrasts glaringly with the short interval between the discovery of the frauds in the case of Strahan, Paul, and Co., or of the robberies in the Redpath and Robson cases, their trial and sentence. The responsibilities of the parties are absolutely different. Few shareholders in the bank are responsible for more than carelessness. They have been victimised. Still the business was done upon their credit, and for their profit. There- | fore the civil law should have afforded to them an economical and rapid mode of being wound up. The uttermost farthing should not be extracted at once; but means could have been adopted in all cases to prevent the alienation of property; and in several, as in general cases of insolvency, to apportion part of earnings to liquidate these responsibilities. This course was more requisite in justice to those shareholders who can and must pay than for the protection of creditors.

The shelter afforded by the law to clever persons is deplorable. Strahan, Paul, and Bates have by no means the moral guilt attached to the publication of deceptive accounts and false reports. The managers of this banking company were guilty of the major crime that yet cannot be punished. Individual directors were deceived, but a deceiver must have existed somewhere. A great crime was committed, and the law of England has no official charged with its discovery. That work is left to inspectors of police, who after they have found out an offence must next search for and seize a prosecutor.

Mr. Harding seeks only £50 per share, in the meantime. The shareholders would prefer Mr. Harding to Mr. Lea in this instance, if £50 would do, but here again they are unable to tell; and nobody can tell them what additional sums may be requisite, nor to whom they should be paid. The history of this case, if ever it be completed, will astonish people of the twentieth century, nearly as much as some of the laws of the seventeenth or eighteenth century amuse the present generation.

After many appeals and arguments, and very long judgments, in which the judges excessively blamed Parliament, as we all blame that stupid assemblage, the allocation of the assets in hand was given to Mr. Lea, who had nothing in his hands, and taken from Mr. Harding, who had the money. The collection of contributions from the shareholders was left undecided; and no receiver was named. In the midst of this confusion large debtors are looked up, because the commission on recovery is a good thing; but small debtors are, we presume, in happy circumstances, and have time to manage their little matters in a way that will be equitable to all parties if they be perfectly honest men.

The legislature, we believe, are to be asked for a brief bill, an ex post facto law, in reference to this matter-a law to meet a case in commerce, not very impossible or improbable-another law to extricate the lawyers from the bewilderment caused by so many statutes; for banking companics have been frequently wound up ere now, and the difficulties in this case originate in a surplus of legislation.

The lawyers deny the possibility, or the propriety, of assimilating civil to criminal law in the despatch The civil law is equally defective in all its ar- of business; and yet they are doing the work rangements for the distribution and the recovery slowly, while they generally assert that it cannot, of joint liabilities. Two gentlemen and their and should not, be done. The county courts in friends conducted an expensive war, chiefly at the England, although expensive, are rapid in their cost of the estate-that is of either the "poor" proceedings. The cost of recovering debts under depositors or the "poor" shareholders-for the them is, we believe, twenty-five per cent. of the management of this company's business. One of amount sued for in the least expensive circumthem, Mr. Harding, was named official manager stances. They are the result of modern legislation, by the Vice-Chancellor. The other, Mr. Lea, was and although not so bad in detail as the former selected as official assignee by a Commissioner in means of procuring payments, yet they are not Bankruptcy. Each gentleman claimed credit for creditable to the country and its reformers. the celerity wherewith he could divide a crown per pound. The claim on the part of either was quite ridiculous; since the amount necessary for that purpose must have got into the hands of the manager without an effort. The case of " Harding v. Lea," in which Lea vanquished Harding, is a satire on our law. Nobody understood whether the Court of Bankruptcy or the Chancellor's Court was to bury the bank. Nobody would have known yet if the job had not been good for several thousand pounds. Nobody knows even yet; for while Mr. Lea divides the assets, and demands contributions, Mr. Harding, deprived of the initiatory profits, requires the shareholders to pay their responsibilities to him. Mr. Lea asks £75, and

From the various discussions respecting them, we learn that the judges enjoy comfortable salaries, running from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds per month. This income should ensure the attendance of any man who accepts it to business day by day. The Scottish sheriffs have to perform numerous duties from which the judges in the county courts of England are exempted. The latter have neither criminal nor political business to transact, and their cases are circumscribed by fifty pounds. They should, therefore, either sit daily, or for four days in each week; and if they

*We observe that these gentlemen have compromised their differences, and are to act in harmony.

COUNTY COURTS.

could dispose of all their public business in two or three hours, they could carry through their private readings and inquiries in the remaining portion of their day. At present, they sit one day in each week, or in two or three weeks, as they find convenient. Upon each of these days, therefore, they have a mass of cases. All the parties concerned -creditor, debtor, and witnesses-are compelled to lounge in the court, often for nearly an entire day, sometimes for two days, before a trial be obtained. In some of those courts, fifty to one hundred persons often lose a day in waiting to give evidence or to obtain a judgment. Fifty crowns are lost in time, upon a low estimate, on each court day, or £12 10s.-a heavy tax paid by the community merely because one class of their servants do not keep good hours for business.

The staff of these courts require leisure days for their out-of-door business; and this, we believe, is one of the excuses made for the present system; but if fourteen hours work in one day weekly be sufficient for the public business, three hours in five days, or four hours in four, weekly, would do the work better, and the balance of each day, with, in the latter case, the two spare days, would be quite sufficient for the external operations of each court by the staff employed now.

In one

The expense to principals and their witnesses is not, however, the only difficulty experienced from huddling the work of a week into a day. Cases are driven past like the carriages npon an express train, or like the wings of the wind, and as if the customers were the enemies of the courts. The judges, apparently, assume that both parties may, and one of them must, be wrong. sense that is true, and in another it may be altogether untrue. Poverty is not a crime; yet it looks very criminal in places of that nature. The object is, however, to shuffle through, at any cost of justice or injustice. Judges must dine, and suitors cannot be heard patiently when dinner, or perhaps a pleasant and social evening party, waits the bores who are only there on business.

The institution of proceedings in these courts requires an outlay of ten per cent., or thereby, upon the sums that a pursuer seeks to recover. When that money has been paid to bring parties together, the pursuer expects naturally that he will obtain a hearing. He was never more grossly mistaken. After he has come to court he must fee the judges, we suppose indirectly, before any. thing can be done for him. He must pay five per cent. in cash upon his claim before he can say a word. The rule is not intolerable for tradesmen who may have money in hand, but a poor man who seeks to recover a debt for wages or work may be practically denied justice. The parties to this exaction should read the first chapter of Isaiah, and consider if some of its verses be not applicable to their conduct. "Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow," but only, says our law, adding to the prophet's injunction, " in forma pauperis."

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After a case has been decided, the pursuer must pay some five per cent. of his money to the good of the court before the amount be withdrawn from its coffers. The county courts of England literally treat all their customers as troublesome fellows, who should be taught not to return. They resemble gambling houses, where all must lose something, and railway conveyances, where all travellers must pay in advance according to the act. From the decision of the single gentleman who presides in the county courts, and is really the court, no appeal can be taken. As he is, or was, a barrister of considerable attainments, when one of that class can be procured, the decisions may be accurate generally; but while three heads are better than one, and the cases in these courts may involve interesting points, an appeal, as in our registration courts, from one to three other judges, might be advantageously introduced; or, as in our sheriff courts, a distinct and superior judge of county courts might be advantageously named to review the decisions of less experienced and younger men.

The superior courts afford abundant opportunities to litigants who wish to become appellants of gratifying their propensities. Mr. Smith-it is impossible to select a name more nearly anonymous

courted and won a lady fair. A day was fixed to make them happy, aud the ungallant wooer postponed his marriage to please his mother. Another day was fixed, and again Mrs. Smith positive beat Mrs. Smith prospective, and the second breach was not healed. The lady went to her father's solicitor, and out of the courting sprung a law plea. At the trial, no shade was cast upon the character of the deserted bride; but Mr. Smith having represented himself as a very "braw wooer," and being, moreover, passably rich, the jury found damages to the extent of three thousand pounds

heavy, we admit, but such as the defendant could pay for pleasing his mother instead of taking a wife, without being wrecked, or sustaining pecuniary inconvenience. The first trial occurred last year; but again, this year, the circumstances have all been related to an admiring audience by clever barristers in court, upon an appeal, or a motion for a new trial-which, we suppose, is the same thing-by the fickle Mr. Smith, who is evidently more steadfast to law than to love, although he has gained nothing by the proceeding. Far be it from us to suggest crime to any Mr. Smith in a similar predicament between a fresh and an old bundle of hay, yet if this gentleman, instead of jilting the lady whose heart he won, had drowned her in a hogshead of porter, or any such liquid, he would have been hanged much sooner than the law compels three thousand pounds to be chequed out of his bank account. This pretty little story, in proof that the course of true love never does run smooth, also shows how much more care the law takes of a man's money than it would take of his neck. It very clearly values Mr. Smith's three thousand pounds more by much than it would value

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