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‘No!’ was his uniform answer to applications of a persuasive nature—‘I am here to decide upon questions of immense importance to these people over whom I am placed as a judge and a ruler. To inspire confidence in the impartiality of my decisions, I cannot be financially associated with any mining property on this goldfield. Say that my partner, or partners, do not come before me in any judicial matter. Such are the ramifications of mining association, that the partners, and friends of their partners, are certain at some time or other to be suitors in my Court. I should not then stand in the same relation to them as to perfectly unknown or detached parties to a suit. Thus I fully resolved, from my first acceptance of this office, to hold myself free from the slightest ground of suspicion.’

‘As for this affair,’ he told his wife, talking over the matter before his departure, ‘it is entirely different; the locality is in another colony, under different laws and another government. If it comes off, I shall be indifferent to all mining law, except as it affects our particular lease—which I shall take up directly I get there.’