To be serious. How could any candid mind otherwise explain the honest
boldness of eight out of nine members of the first Local Court, Ballaarat,
who, one and all, I do not say dared, but I say called upon their fellow miners
to come forward to a public meeting on the old spot, Bakery-hill. September,
Saturday, 30th, 1855. Said members had already settled at that time
201 disputes, and given their judgement, involving some half a million sterling
altogether, for all what they knew, and yet not one miner rose one finger
against them, when they imperatively desired to know whether they had done
their duty and still possessed the confidence of their fellow diggers!
They (said members) are practical men, of our own adopted class,
elected by ourselves from among ourselves, to sit as arbitrators of our
disputes, and our representatives at the Local Court. That's the key, for any
future Brougham, for the history of the Local Courts on the gold-fields.

It has fallen to my lot, however, to put the Eureka Stockade on record;
and, from the following 'Joe' chapter must begin any proper history
of that disgracefully memorable event.




Chapter IX.



Abyssus, Abyssum Invocat.


"Joe, Joe!" No one in the world can properly understand and describe this
shouting of "Joe," unless he were on this El Dorado of Ballaarat at the time.