A desperate deed was committed in broad mid-day; Monday, October 16th,
in the Ballaarat township.
Four men in the garb of diggers, wearing sou'-wester hats, and having
crepe over their faces, entered the Bank of Victoria, and succeeded
in carrying off property in notes and gold, to the amount
of about 15,000 pounds.
Who would have told me then, that soon I should be messmate to those
unknown audacious robbers, in the same gaol!!
Let's go to the public meeting in the next chapter.
Chapter XIX.
Una Scintilla, Sparasi La Bomba,
Spalanca A Multitudini La Tomba.
The following story was going the rounds of the Eureka. There was a
licence-hunt; the servant of the Rev. P. Smyth, the priest of the Catholic
church, Bakery-hill, went to a neighbouring tent to visit a sick man.
While inside, a trooper comes galloping up at the tent-door, and shouts out,
"Come out here, you d----d wretches! there's a good many like you on the
diggings." The man came outside, and was asked if "he's got a licence?"
The servant, who is a native of Armenia, answers, in imperfect English,
that he is a servant to the priest. The trooper says, "Damn you and
the priest," and forthwith dismounts for the purpose of dragging
Johannes M'Gregorius, the servant, along with him. The servant remonstrates
by saying he is a disabled man, unable to walk over the diggings.
This infuriates the trooper, he strikes and knocks down the poor disabled
foreigner, drags him about, tears his shirt--in short, inflicting such injuries
on the poor fellow, that all the diggers present cried out "shame! shame!"
Commissioner Johnson rides up, and says to the crowd about him, that he should
not be interrupted in the execution of his 'dooty.
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