CHAPTER XV.
In a previous chapter I gave an account of a funeral at Williamstown, where a father had to dig his own child’s grave. A similar case occurred about this time. One morning R———, a friend of mine, was strolling through the first burial ground on Lambing Flat, at the back of the Great Eastern, when he saw an old man digging a grave. He accosted him with “Good morning; for whom are you digging the grave?” The old man replied, “As my son, a young man about twenty-two years of age, the stay and prop of me and my wife in our declining years, was coming to the Flat with a load of produce he fell sick and died; we have brought the corpse here for burial, and it is lying under the dray yonder; I could not find anyone to dig the grave, so had to dig it myself.” R——— told him to leave off and he would find someone to finish it, at the same time recommending him to notify the circumstance to the Commissioner. On his way home R——— called at the Great Eastern, where he related the sad tale. The few persons in the bar at once subscribed a sum sufficient to defray the necessary expenses of the burial.
The following incident was related to me by an eye-witness, who at the time held a responsible position at Lambing Flat, and is described in order to give some idea of the extraordinary powers exercised by the police in trying to suppress crime. I give it in his own words:—“One morning Detective Carnes called at my hotel and gave me a pressing invitation to accompany him to Blackguard Gully, ‘to see a bit of fun.’ I readily assented, took my walking-stick as a protector, while the police officer (of course in private clothes) was armed with a small single-barrel pocket pistol. After walking for about an hour and a-half we came upon the dreaded locality, Blackguard Gully, and entered a large shanty, where it was supposed some unfortunates had been stuck up the night before. The shanty was somewhat better than the usual style of sly-grog shop, being very comfortably furnished, and containing three large rooms. As soon as we entered the landlady uttered an exclamation of horror and surprise at seeing
