Читать книгу The Last Chance: A Tale of the Golden West онлайн

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To be sure, on the following morning after the Commissioner’s arrival, when it was announced that he had decided to ask for three months’ leave of absence, and to retire at the end of that time from the Government service, there was a certain excitement, almost a commotion.

Many of the inhabitants, who had accepted the rule of the Commissioner without any particular enthusiasm, were always willing to admit that he was a man ready to work in season or out of season, whenever there was public duty to be performed—considerate and impartial—treating the Christian or the Chinaman according to the Act and Regulations in such cases made and provided, and to no other code, moral or otherwise; an official almost ceaselessly employed during the waking hours—often before sunrise, or after dark, by the journeys which his duties of inspection rendered indispensable; rarely known to be tired, ill, or discourteous; ready alike to hear as patiently the case of the humblest miner as that of the most powerful syndicate;—such was his record for the ten long years that he had lived among them in almost daily intercourse. A judge and a ruler, moreover, whose decisions, in the words of an influential local journal, ‘had been rarely appealed against, and still more rarely reversed.’