Raffaello Carboni

“ My soul was drowned in an ocean of bitterness when of that brood of Satan, one did swear he had run from before my pike; another had fired at me, but his pistol 'snapped;' a third made me prisoner within the stockade; a fourth took me up chained to other prisoners who had surrendered, from the stockade to the Camp.
Such, then, is the perversity of the human heart! In vain did I point out to the sitting magistrate the absurdness of their evidence, and the fact that Sub-inspector Carter and Dr. Carr could prove the contradiction. ”

“ John Bull! you wilfully bend your neck to any burden for palaver and war to protect you in your universal shop-keeping, and maintain your sacred rights of property; but human life is to you as it was to Napoleon: for him, fodder for the cannon; for you, tools to make money. A dead man needs no further care, and human kind breeds fast enough everywhere after all,— 'Cetera quando rursum scribam'.
On my reaching the stockade with a pannikin of water for Teddy, I was amazed at the apathy showed by the diggers, who now crowded from all directions round the dead and wounded. ”

“ Hard work by day, blazing fire in the evening, and sound sleep by night at the music of drunken quarrels all around, far and near. I had marked my claim in accordance with the run of the ranges, and safe as the Bank of England I bottomed on gold. No search for licence ever took place. What's the matter? Oh, the diggers of Bendigo, by sheer moral force, in the shape of some ten thousand in a mob, had inspired with better sense the red-tape there and somewhere else, so I took out my licence at the reasonable rate of two pounds for three months, my contribution for the support of gold-lace. ”

“ I hereby assert that the breed of spies in this colony prospered by this sly-grog selling. "We want money," say some of the "paternals" at Toorak.
"Oh! well, then," replies another at Ballaarat, "come down on a few storekeepers and unlicensed miners and raise the wind. We can manage a thousand or two that way. Let the blood-hounds on the scent, and it is done."
And so a scoundrel, in the disguise of an honest man, takes with him another worse devil than himself, and goes round like a roaring lion, seeking what he may devour. ”

“ The troubles of this colony have begun.
It is eight o'clock of a fine morning; the spring season is in its full: the sun in his splendour is all there on the blue sky. Nature all around is life. The landscape is superb. It reminded me 'della Bella Cara Itallia'. The bush around was crammed with parrots, crows, and other chattering birds of the south. They were not prevented from singing praises each in its own language to the Creator, and all was joy and happiness with them. Unfortunately those lands lay uncultivated by the hand of man ”

“ Thonen was the purveyor. The Eureka butcher on the hill gave plenty of meat, and plenty of bread was got from all the neighbouring stores, and paid for. A large fire was lit in the middle of the stockade, and thus some were made as comfortable as circumstances admitted; others were quartered at the tents of friends; the greater part, soon guessing how they had been humbugged, returned to their old quarters.
Arms and ammunition were our want. Men were there enough; each and all ready to fight: such was the present excitement; but blue and red coats cannot be driven off with fists alone. ”

“ It was odious to see honourable, honest, hard-working men made the gazing stock of a parcel of pampered perverted fools, for the fun of "a change;" to gratify their contempt for the blue-shirt and thick-boots who had dared, mucky and muddy, to come out of their deep wet holes to hamper these gods of the land in their dog's game of licence-hunting! ”

“ He is rather short, not so much healthy-looking as wide awake. 'What's up?' is his motto. This colony will sober him down, and then he will attend more to 'what's to be done.' His complexion bears the stamp of one born of a good family, but you can read in the white of his eyes, in the colouring of his cheeks, in the paleness of his lips, that his heart is for violence. When he gets a pair of solid whiskers, he may pass for a Scotchman, for he has already a nose as if moulded in Scotland. ”

“ JOHN MANNING, born in Ireland, and an Irishman to the back-bone, appeared above forty years of age. His head was bald, perhaps from thinking three times more than he ought; his forehead showed intelligence, but care was there with the plough—the plough of dreaming too much of virtue, believing the knaves are not the majority on earth. He had come young to this colony, had passed hard days, and so he had got the colonial habit, now and then, 'Divo jucundo Baccho cultum prestare;' hence his hair was fast turning grey. ”

“ The brave people of Melbourne remembered the state prisoners, forgotten by the Ballaarat diggers, who now that the storm was over, considered themselves luckily cunning to have got off safe; and therefore could afford to "joe" again; the red-streak near Golden-point, having put every one in the good old spirits of the good old times.
Yourself devoting to the public cause,
You ask the people if they be "there" to die:
Yes, yes hurrah the thund'ring applause,
Too soon, alas! you find out the lie!
Cast in a gaol, at best you are thought a fool,
Red hot grows you foe; your friend too cool. ”

“ Is the end of the world now at hand? Look at the victorious rainbow! it reminds man of the covenant of our God with Noah, not far from this southern land. The sun restores confidence that all is right again as before, and nature, refreshed and bolder, returns again to her work. ”

“ His Honour tried the patience of the jury; well knowing by experience, that twelve true-born Britons can always afford to put up with a good long yarn.
The jury retired at nine o'clock. My first thought was directed to the Lord my God and my Redeemer. Then naturally enough, to sustain my courage, I was among my dear friends at Rome and London.
To remain in the felon's dock whilst your JURY consult on your fate, is a sensation very peculiar in its kind. To be or not to be; that's the actual matter-of-fact question. ”

“ Meanwhile, privately, as an old Ballaarat hand, I beg respectfully to convey to you, to employ your influence and reach the ears of the Lieutenant Governor. The licence-fee, as a tax, is perhaps a cause of growling like any other tax in Great Britain or elsewhere in the world; but, on the gold-fields, has become an 'abomination.' The inconvenience in the Camp-insolence at our getting it, the annoyance and bore for showing it, when asked by some 'pup' of a trap whilst at our work; the imbecility and arrogance of so many commissioners and troopers uselessly employed for the purpose, etc., etc. ”

“ Some five hundred armed diggers advanced in real sober earnestness, the captains of each division making the military salute to Lalor, who now knelt down, the head uncovered, and with the right hand pointing to the standard exclaimed a firm measured tone:
"WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER, AND FIGHT TO DEFEND OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES." An universal well rounded AMEN, was the determined reply; some five hundred right hands stretched towards our flag. ”

“ On passing through the Eureka, I got a glance of my snug little tent, where I had passed so many happy hours, and was sacred to me on a Sunday. There it lay deserted, uncared for! My eyes were choked with tears, and at forty years of age a man does not cry for little. ”

“ Hence, his energy was never abated, though the whole legion of Victorian red-tape wanted to dry his inkstand, and smother his lamp in gaol. That there are too many fools at large, he knows, because he has travelled half the world; what he cannot put up with, is their royal cant, religious bosh, Toorak small-beer, and first and foremost, their money-grubbing expertness. Hence, now and then, his ink turns sour, and thereby its vitriol burns stronger. The Times, of which he is the founder, is the Overseer of Ballaarat, and the Dolce far niente will not prosper. ”

“ A pair of bushy whiskers frame in such a shrewd forehead, astute nose, thundering mouth; that one had better keep at a respectful distance from drakes. His whole head and strongbuilt frame tell that he is ready to settle at once with anybody, either with the tongue or with the fist. His eloquence savours pretty strongly of Daniel O'Connell, and is flavoured with colonial pepper: hence Mr. Ireland will always exercise a potent spell over a jury. If he were the Attorney-General, the colony would breath freer from knaves, rogues, and vagabonds. ”

“ The jewellers' shops, which threatened to exhaust themselves in Canadian Gully, were again the talk of the day: and the Eureka gold dust was finer, purer, brighter, immensely darling. The unfaithful truants who had rushed to Bryant's Ranges, to knock their heads against blocks of granite, now hastened for the third time to the old spot, Ballaarat, determined to stick to it for life or death. English, German, and Scotch diggers, worked generally on the Gravel Pits; the Irish had their stronghold on the Eureka. The Americans fraternised with all the wide-awake, ubi caro, ibi vultures. ”

“ Rede, after all, was neither the right man, nor in the right place, for Sir Charles Hotham.
Sub-inspector Taylor, with his silver-lace cap, blue frock, and jingling sword, so precise in his movement, so Frenchman-like in his manners, such a puss-in-boots, after introducing the deputation, placed himself at the right of the Commissioner, and never spoke; though, on accompanying us from the bridge, having recognised me, he said, "We have been always on good terms with the diggers, and I hope we may keep friends still;"— and gave me a smile of sincerity. ”

“ The ugliness of his eyes prejudices you against him at first; let him, however, turn them upon you, in his own benevolent way, you are sure they mean no harm: within, a pair of splendid whiskers, of the finest blond, there is such a genteel nose and mouth, such a fine semi-serious forehead, that the whole is the expression of his good sound heart, that loves truth, even from devils. It was Charles Henry Hackett, police magistrate.
The place of our palaver was exactly one yard down hill, near the old gum tree, in front of the present Local Court. ”

“ Not so, Britons, not so! We must meet as in old Europe—old style—improved by far in the south—for the redress of grievances inflicted on us, not by crowned heads, but blockheads, aristocratical incapables, who never did a day's work in their life. ”

“ Light your pipe, good reader, you have to blow hard. Our red-tape, generally obtuse and arrogant, this once got rid of the Usual conceit in all things, and had to acknowledge that the digger who remained quietly at his work, always possessed his licence. Hence the troopers were despatched like bloodhounds, in all directions, to beat the bush; and the traps who had a more confined scent, creeped and crawled among the holes, and sneaked into the sly-grog tents round about, in search of the swarming unlicensed game. In a word, it was a regular hunt. ”