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Rh assembled in the body of the court; so did the barristers and solicitors; and there was such a laugh laughed as has seldom been heard before within the walls of a magistrate’s court. It was a great mistake, but an excusable one, which many a bright man might have committed.

It is a strange thing, unfortunately too true, that in the early days of the diggings there was more intemperance amongst doctors than any other class. One would naturally imagine that they, above all others, should be aware of the direful effects produced by this habit; and yet it is so: they will advise their patients to abstain from stimulants at the very time they themselves are strongly under the influence of them. I remember rather a ludicrous affair in connection with this subject. In one place on the West Coast of New Zealand there were two doctors,—Dr. D., sober and incompetent; Dr. W., always drunk, but very clever (at least he got the reputation of being so). The magistrate having to send a man to the lunatic asylum, required the certificate of two medical men. There was nothing else to be done, he had to call in Dr. W., who appeared in his usual form. After signing the necessary papers, to do which Dr. W. had to hold on to the table with one hand and wield the pen with the other, he said, addressing the magistrate, “Oh! Mr. B., I’m so much obliged to you.” “For what?” said the magistrate. “For the good advice you gave me two years ago; you advised me not to drink, and I have felt so much better ever since”

Poor old Dr. W., he died in the Brighton hospital a few months after.

How is it that a drunken doctor is usually called clever?

On the 12th June, 1866, four men named Felix Matthieu, John Kempthorne, James Dudley, and James De Pontius left the Deep Creek diggings with the intention of proceeding to Nelson, and from thence to the West Coast. The first-named was a respectable hotelkeeper (whose name is mentioned in Chapter X.), the second a storekeeper, the third also a storekeeper, and the last a digger. That night they camped at the Pelorus Bridge, and after breakfast on the following morning started for Nelson. Several persons met them on the road, and they were last seen a little way on the Nelson side of Franklyn Flat, where all traces of them ceased. The arrival of Matthieu and party had been anxiously awaited by Messrs. Leo and Hartmann, who had preceded the missing men from Deep Creek, and who were staying in Nelson in anticipation of meeting them. Their prolonged absence caused suspicion, a search party was formed, and started on the 18th June. On the 19th a man named Levy, who was identified as having been seen at Matthieu’s Hotel on the 10th June, was arrested on suspicion of having been implicated in some way with the loss of Matthieu’s party, and a short time after three others, viz., Burgess, Kelly, and Sullivan,