" The dislike of the
system was universal; disputes were frequent, and collisions between the
police and diggers sometimes occurred.
Another of the diggers' grievances was the extreme insecurity of life
and property on the mines. While the police force were snugly housed at
headquarters, in a peaceable and orderly neighbourhood, the populous and
remote gullies were the nightly scenes of deeds of robbery and violence.
Every evening men were knocked down and brutally treated or "stuck up"
and robbed. Every night horses were stolen, tents broken into, and
"holes" plundered of gold by the "night fossickers"--miscreants who
watched for the richest "holes" during the day, marked them, and
plundered them at night. In October 1852 at a place called Moonlight
Flat (near Forest Creek), these desperadoes had become so numerous and
shameless, and their outrages so frequent, that the miners rose _en
masse_ against them. A public meeting was convened; blue-shirted diggers
made stirring appeals to their auditory; a deputation was appointed to
proceed instantly to Melbourne to remonstrate with the Government, and
to implore it to adopt energetic measures for extirpating the "hordes of
ruffians" that infested their neighbourhood, and the persons of many of
whom were well known there.
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