A DISHONEST GOLD DIGGER.

Colonist, Volume VI, Issue 623, 13 October 1863, Page 3

A DISHONEST GOLD DIGGER.

(From the Colonist, September 25.J The honorable dealing of gold diggers with each other, has long been proverbial. The rigid honesty which exists among miners in a large, rough, and often lawless community, composed of men of nearly all nations, may form a lesson to mercantile society anywhere all over the world. This strict honor is an absolute necessity where the excitement of gold^hunting merges all other considerations^ into the one grand pursuit, and where the opportunities for dishonesty to partners are frequent, and fraud would be difficult of detection. Hence, among the diversified masses of men who people a gold field, there have sprung an absolute hatred of fraudulent dealing between diggers, and an honorable adherence to the unwritten code of gold digging law. Any infringement of that code is exceeding rare. When it does occur the guilty person becomes an Ishmaelite, against whom every man's hand is raised; and if he escape the tender mercies of Judge Lynch he may thank the " gentleman in black " who sometimes takes care of his own worthless children. The case tried before the Eesident Magistrate here on Tuesday, and fully reported in our columns to-day, is one of these rare cases of disgraceful fraud. A fellow named Anderson, while working in partnership with one St. Dicier, a French digger, found and secreted a large nugget worth nearly a hundred guineas. "While in the recovering statej of a drunken fit, the rascal divulged his; roguery. He robbed his mate, and brandy told the story. j The evidence of the delinquent was, as; Mr. Poynter said, remarkably " shifty and' Bhaky." But it was more than this. It forms .a good ground work for a criminal information, for, on the face of it Jfagre_igj)!ain, perjury, and, there must be

many men on the diggings now who could overturn three-fifths of the man's statement?.

There was only-one-thing wanting in the judgment of the Resident Magistrate. It is a pity $hat in. additiofcto compelling Anderson to disgorge -his with swinging costs, the law did nob aSllowhim to give the rogue six months' i imprisonment with hard labor, which he richly 'deserved. , As it is, the sooherhe shirks away to some place where he is unknown, the better for himself. In some places he would have lost his ears on the instant, and been glad to consider himself let cheaply off at that price. The wise and sensible forbearance of the diggers, who respected, the law, and now see that it has properly vindicated itself, is much to be commended, and we trust a like tolerance will always be: exercised by them in any similar difficulty. :