Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/68

Rh by a grunt of approval, or a hiss of earnest. Isaac was found in a state of insensibility; his features were battered beyond the possibility of recognition; his clothes torn off him and covered in blood. It is but just to add that the perpetrators of the outrage were committed as soon as Isaac could testify against them.

The following is an extract from knocking about in New Zealand, by Mr. C. L. Money:—“No class of men in the world are less generally known and appreciated than the diggers, In saying this I do not for one moment refer to those curses of a goldfield, the low Irish ‘Tips’; for a more cowardly, ruffianly, or brutal character I have never met with than that lively specimen from the Green Isle, who seems to flourish with rank luxuriance in the neighbourhood of gold. He is the man who will, as long as he has a mob of his mates to back him, smash up a store, jump a claim, rob a church, or shoot a gallant and inoffensive young prince, with equal zest.

“These are not the class to whom I refer as diggers. The true digger, whether Irish, Scotch, or English, is a brave, high-spirited working man, ready with his purse as a friend, or with his fist as a foe. The dash of peril which necessarily accompanies the pursuits in which he is so constantly engaged imparts a free and careless bluffness to his manner, which is a great relief from the reserve and formality that prevail among nearly all classes in the old country. I know no more hospitable individual, in the full sense of the word, than this honest, jolly, free-hearted spendthrift. A share of his damper and bacon, or whatever else he may have, a pannikin of tea, or half his blanket or opposumopossum [sic] rug, are always at your disposal if you choose to accept them. He on his part would, if compelled to seek it, expect to find the same welcome at your tent door, and would recall the kindness afterwards with gratitude, while endeavouring in every way to make some return.”