Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/52

Rh wife, decorated the room, and the affair went off in first-class style. The tea pleased some, the ball others, and all seemed to enjoy the fun. That building is gone, so are the builder and the decorator. Now a large and substantial structure is erected on the old site. Doctors then were difficult to obtain, none for love and few for money. Now they are in abundance, striving to help in the glorious work of serving suffering humanity. The diggers have not done much to help on such a valuable institution, but, thanks to our Government, there has been no lack; many a fine fellow, far from his father’s home, has had his last pillow soothed by the hands of a stranger, and the mortal remains of many an unknown one have been decently laid in the digger’s grave.

The following extract I found in one of my old diaries, but by whom it was written I cannot say:—

“Looking back to the early days when cats were quoted at £2 2s., and boxes of lucifer matches were considered almost a legal currency, I see much to interest and amuse in the old reminiscences. The old town—one Greenwich-fair erection throughout—save some pretentious slabsided buildings—and scarce they were in those days—every restaurant with its flag, and every store with its quiet back-room for illicit drams, which were taken stealthily, and gulped down for fear of the ‘traps.’ Soon the liberal professions began to flourish. A gentleman learned in the law started an office about six feet by four in ornamental calico; doctors rolled up from unimaginable places; an apothecaries’ hall sprung into existence—built upon homeopathic principles as far as size was concerned. The camp then held itself aloof from the common traffickers of the town and the diggers. Now, as the French say, ‘we have changed all that.’ We must say, however, that the gallant commissioners and their various aides were not insensible to the pleasantry of an evening with a ‘little music,’ and in a certain calico erection, where a piano might generally be heard by night, should a commissioner or camp official have been required on an emergency, one or more might be always found; little blame to them, for there was no other amusement, except an evening with Hitchcock at his auction rooms, or with a still more amusing Hibernian knight of the hammer, whose name I forget, but whose humorous method of doing his business is fresh in my memory. Certainly we had our bagatelle table (of course in a shanty dignified by the name of restaurant), where you could be ‘hocussed,’ robbed, and half killed without much stir being made about it; or if the unfortunate wight who had fallen among thieves went to complain, he would in all probability be asked for his ‘license,’ and in default of its production his already bruised spirit would be broken by being put in the ‘logs’ for a few days.

“The sight of the old post-office reminds me of many an afternoon struggle, and sometimes even a fight to get to the narrow