but the d----d things--his matches--had got damp, and so in a rage he must
hasten to his tent to light the pipe; that is, to put on the Yankee garb
and complete his forenoon work in a third hole of his, whose depth and shape
recommended him as a first rate grave-digger.

And what has all this bosh to do with the Eureka Stockade?




Chapter VIII.



Fiat Fustitia, Ruat Coelum.


As an old Ballaarat hand, I hereby assert, that much of the odium of the mining
community against red-tape, arose from the accursed practice of jumping.

One fact from the 'stubborn-things' store. The Eureka gutter was fast
progressing down hill towards the Eureka gully. A party of Britishers
had two claims; the one, on the slope of the hill, was bottomed on heavy gold;
the other, some four claims from it, and parallel with the range, was some
ninety feet deep, and was worked by day only, by three men: a fourth man
would now and then bring a set of trimmed slabs from the first hole aforesaid,
where he was the principal 'chips.' There was a Judas Iscariot among the party.
One fine morning, a hole was bottomed down the gully, and proved a scheisser.
A rush, Eureka style, was the conseqence; and it was pretended now that
the gutter would keep with the ranges, towards the Catholic church.