Having a try at the diggings

A condition of being granted tickets-of-leave for good behaviour was that convicts not "sojourn" at any of the goldfields. "Yet the fellows will have a try at the diggings," wrote a Melbourne correspondent. "The consequence is that the various goldfields, Mt. Ararat especially, are overrun with them, and they and the expirees of this and the neighbouring colonies, share amongst them the lucrative business of bushranging."

The beast from Big River

A "huge beast of the bovine species" was exhibited in Bathurst. "The bullock was the property of Mr Richard Mutton, and was bred on the Big River by Mr Andrew Brown. To say that it was a handsome, well-proportioned animal, would be an abuse of words, as it was positively ugly with fat, the hind quarters positively abounding with that material. Its weight lay somewhere between 1200 and 1300lbs."

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Wanted to be known

A young German, Charles Kiabel, had recently been accused of the murder of a Mr Richter, of Goulburn, who had disappeared. "The innocent sufferer now discharged in consequence of a false suspicion of murder, is happy to acknowledge hereby the generous and noble behaviour to him of the German Gymnastic Club, many of his other friends, and the horse constables. May heaven reward every one of them!"