anion
in the saloon was arrested and tried. The circumstantial evidence was
strong, and the judge so charged the jury. But the jury acquitted the
prisoner. Dead silence fell in the court-room. The prisoner's counsel
arose and requested the discharge of the man. Begbie whirled:
'Prisoner at the bar, the jury have said you are not guilty. You can
go, and I devoutly hope the next man you sandbag will be one of the
jury.' On another occasion a man was found stabbed on the Cariboo
Road. The man with whom the dead miner had been quarrelling was {94}
arrested, tried, and, in spite of strong evidence against him,
acquitted. Begbie adjourned the court with the pious wish that the
murderer should go out and cut the throats of the jury.

But, in spite of his harsh manner towards the wrong-doer, 'the old
man,' as the miners affectionately called him, kept law and order. In
the early days gold commissioners not only settled all mining disputes,
but acted as judge and jury. Against any decision of the gold
commissioners Begbie was the sole appeal, and in all the long years of
his administration no decision of his was ever challenged.

The effect of sudden wealth on some of the hungry, ragged horde who
infested Cariboo was of a sort to discount fiction. One man took out
forty thousand dollars in gold nuggets. A lunatic escaped from a
madhouse could not have been more foolish. He came to the best saloon
of Barkerville. He called in guests from the highways and byways and
treated them to champagne which cost thirty dollars and fifty dollars a
bottle. When the rabble could drink no more champagne, he ordered
every glass filled and placed on the bar. With one magnificent drunken
gesture of vainglory he swept the glasses in a clattering crash to the
{95} floor. There was still a basket of champagne left. He danced the
hurdy-gurdy on that basket till he cut his feet. The champagne was all
gone, but he still had some gold nuggets. There was a mirror in the
bar-room valued at hundreds of dollars. The miner stood and proudly
surveyed his own figure in the glass. Had he not won his dearest
desire and conquered all things in conquering fortune? He gathered his
last nuggets and hurled them in handfuls at the mirror, shattering it
in countless pieces. Then he went out in the night to sleep under the
stars, penniless. He settled down to work for the rest of his life in
other men's mines.

The staid Overlanders, who had