provincial France, in the recess of the Legislative
Body, engaged ostensibly to defend oppressed
editors and patriots whose enthusiasm has over-
stepped the law, but really in a campaign of
political opposition to the present régime.
Emile Ollivier, less adroit than his colleagues,
by this course provoked his dismissal from the
bar. Thus the French, who love excitement,
have plenty of it in the summer, during the
assizes; thus, in spite of the repressive policy
of the government, ideas hostile to it penetrate
the mass under the protection of the very law
itself.

LEADING AND DRIVING.

"WILL they let us down? Yes, if you treat
them— say, half a dozen of brandy— I think
they are twenty-four partners in all— four men
to a bottle."

The scene was Ballarat, a few yards from one
of its most ordinary features— the tall brick
chimney and large irregular wooden shanty, or
shedding, marking the site of a deep
underground claim. The speaker was my landlord,
who had kindly driven me over in his own pony
phaeton, from the hotel to "Frenchman's
Lead" — a line of gold workings some three or
four years opened up, and now in active
operation.

The chimney of this shanty is not an
unhandsome structure. All round, for miles
upon miles, we see hundreds of such chimneys;
and, if we trace them more closely, find them
adhering, with greater or less irregularity, to
certain curving and meandering lines, which
are the various leads composing the Ballarat
deep sinkings. A lead may be of any length
from half a mile to six miles. It obeys no law,
that has ever yet been discovered: it turns and
twists; it throws off branches, and takes them
back again; it goes under a hill, and crosses a
valley; it turns back on itself; it leaves you
unexpectedly in the lurch, and resumes its
course in the very last place you would have
dreamt of; it crosses other leads, as the gentlemen
of the Ballarat long robe have good reason
to know to their profit. Two or three leads
pass right under the town of Ballarat itself—
(city, I believe, I should now call it)—my
landlord's hotel is built over one of them. The
surface of the ground affords no possible indi-
cation that a lead is, or is not, beneath it. The
miner must just "chance" his claim as Fortune
directs—about fifty yards lineal, in a straight
line, to each partner, according to the new
Frontage Act. When he has got down, say
four hundred feet, to the supposed level of the
lead, he must look for it north, south, east, or
west, as the same fortune may direct. By the
terms of the Frontage Act, he knows that no
one is permitted to come between his shaft and
the lead, whatever its distance may be—without
this deep-sinking would be the veriest of
gambling. Going down is called sinking—
looking north, south, east, or west for the lead,
when you have got down, is called driving. If
a miner strikes the lead he is rewarded,
generally amply. If he don't strike the lead, he
gets nothing at all. He ought to go down in
about twelve months; an unusual quantity of
subterranean water, or rock strata, may make
it two or three years. Driving is, of course,
according to circumstances. Some have the
luck to "drop on" the gutter, or central gold-
yielding line of the lead, but they are very few.
More often the water gets ahead of the work,
and the claim is abandoned.

We enter the somewhat rude congregation
of sheds, constituting the surface portion of the
"Great extended claim," Frenchman's Lead,
Ballarat—and stand over the shaft.

A hot, moist vapour rises out of it, like
smoke out of a chimney. We gaze down into
pitchy darkness—we hear only the dreadful
"plump" of a drop of water falling into some
receptacle below, and imagination alone assists
us to conceive the operations going on beneath.
The shaft is a square box, formed of the iron-
hard, and iron-heavy, blue gum of the country,
and is without lid and without bottom. This
box is about three feet square and four hundred
deep.

A few yards from it stands the engine; the
most important piece of mechanism connected
with the claim. The engine lets you down
and up the shaft; pumps up water, and sends
down fresh air; hauls up the excavated soil
(or headings) which is to be thrown away,
and also the washing-stuff which is not to
be thrown away, until it has passed through
a very careful process; then it turns to, and
goes through the process of puddling, washing,
and cradling the gold from the washing-stuff.
There is a large arm-chair beside the much-
performing engine, in which a large, fat man sits.
You are particularly requested not to speak to
the man in the arm-chair, who, by-the-by,
does not appear to invite conversation: if you
talk loud, or make other noise, he looks less
inviting still. That man is all ear—nothing
else—when on duty. From the bottom of the
shaft a wire extends to the arm-chair, and
executes a very audible knock there—one, two,
three, &c., as the case may be. Such is the
simple code of signals to which, and to which
only, the man in the arm-chair is bound to
attend. Nay, lest in the confusion of the day,
or silent watches of the night (most of these
deep claims work night and day) any temporary
forgetfulness of their interpretation should
occur to him, the code itself is written out on a
large black board with white letters suspended
straight before him, thus:

One knock . . . . . . Man coming up.
Two knocks . . . . . Heading.
Three knocks . . . . Washing stuff.

And so on. Inattention is homicide, unless you
choose to call it murder, which a Ballarat jury
would be very likely to do.

Around lie the various tanks, tubs, and
implements for puddling, washing, and separating
the gold. Immense stacks of wood lie ready
for the consumption of the engine. Other wood,
in slabs, is ready for "boxing" the drives in