One of these 'retiring' gentlemen
stated on the morning of the famed 'digger-hunt' of the
30th November, in reply to one of the refractory diggers:
"If you do not pay your licences, how are we to be supported
at the Camp?" and further, "There are some disaffected
scoundrels I am determine to arrest!" To crush! for what?
For daring to refuse to pay taxes except they had a voice
in the expending of them for the public weal; public taxes
are public property. Some of these 'gentlemanly' officials
made use of language on the occasion alluded to, that not
only gave evidence of considerable malignity, but of a
vulgarity that a gentleman would scorn to use; and we think
it not an unfair inference to draw from the foregoing facts,
that the digger-hunt of the 30th of November, and the cruel
slaughter of the 3rd December, were unmistakable acts of
petty official revenge; and, therefore, instead of the
diggers forestalling the Commission of Inquiry, appointed
by His Excellency, we advisedly say it was Commissioner
Rede and Co. who forestalled the inquiry by endeavouring
to crush the '500 scoundrels' he complained of--a scoundrel
in that gentleman's estimation seems to be one who thinks
that some 12 pounds per head per annum is rather too heavy
a tax for an Englishman to pay, especially if used in
supporting men so unfit for office as he has proved himself
to be. This gentleman was the arch-rioter of the 30th
November; in this we are confirmed (if confirmation of
well-known facts were needed) by the verdict of acquittal
of the so called 'Ballaarat Rioters,' partially on the
evidence of Mr.
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