of men rushed Old Westland, it was natural that they should bring with them a code peculiar to the fields they had left, and that code did not permit of Chinamen being allowed on the diggings at all.
To illustrate the hatred of the Australian diggers towards the Chinese, it is interesting to note that at Lambing Flat—a very rich field in New South Wales—an anti-Chinese league was formed with the avowed intention of “driving the Chows out of the country”; and it is a matter of history that members of this body, headed by a band playing Rule Britannia, actually raided diggings worked by Chinamen, whose gold they stole after beating them most unmercifully and burning their huts down. As a result of this raid several were arrested and severely punished, which only intensified the feeling against the Confucians, which was at its height when Old Westland broke out.
Now on the West Coast goldfields there were several Lambing Flat hotels, and one so named at Blaketown, kept by an Australian named Horsington (who came from Lambing Flat), was headquarters of a clique known as the Tipperary Boys, who well and truly hated Chinamen. Here occurred an incident typical of the goldfields in their heyday. But before writing of this, meet Gentleman George (whose surname no man knew), an Englishman who
