The chairman of the meeting was a Scotchman, who occupied a conspicuous position on a bank of earth, overlooking the audience, and who, fortunately being blessed with strong lungs, shouted, “Order, order,” whenever the miners grew too quarrelsome, or had more than two fights going on at the same time.

An Irishman, whose clothes might have been bought at a second hand dealer’s for a very moderate sum—­for they were rent in various places, and no attempt had been made to patch them—­was the first speaker, and he howled in the most approved manner, and even our political friends might have taken a lesson from him.  He had not spoken two minutes before he denounced England as the worst nation upon the face of the earth, and considered Englishmen as lions and brutes, while Irishmen were every thing that was amiable and intelligent.

He was about to declare that an Irishman could lick a dozen Britons, when an indignant Englishman planted a blow upon his nose that knocked him headlong from the box on which he was standing.

The chairman called order, but did not appear surprised at the turn which things had taken.

The next speaker was a Scotch miner, who declared that he was no slave, and was not afraid to let the Governor General of Australia know it.  He thought that if there was an Eden in this world, that Scotland would have to be visited to find it.  He declared that he had rather live in his native country, and subsist upon oatmeal porridge, than remain in Australia and dig gold, and that the reason he paid a mining tax, was because he wanted to encourage the English to continue their outrages.

The next speaker was our late friend Charley.  He alluded to the American Eagle, touched on Bunker Hill, eulogized the Declaration of Independence, admired the Revolution, and then artfully proceeded to depicture the prosperity that Australia would be likely to enjoy, if separated from the mother country, and become a republic.  Then, he said, taxation would be equal, and money would not be wrung from the hard-working miners to support governors and other officials in luxury.  While Mr. Charley was shouting with all his might, and trying to infuse a little of his own warmth into his hearers, a little, decrepit old man, with long, gray hair and shabby clothes, edged towards us, as though to enter into conversation.

“Well, I don’t know but the man is right,” the old man said, after listening a few minutes in silence.  His dialect was broad Yorkshire, and we mentally concluded that he belonged in that part of England.

“There’s a great dale in havin’ independence, and all that.  What d’ye think about it?”

The interrogation was addressed so pointedly that there was no chance to escape without an answer; but we had lived too long in foreign countries to commit ourselves on any question that was likely to cause us trouble.

“We have not given the subject a thought to-day.  When we have made up our minds, we will let you know,” returned Fred.