Crime ,law and order

By Royina

content

What crimes were committed?

Crimes were committed all the time on the gold fields. It was so hard for the police to keep track the main thing the police looked for was miners without licences. Crime was a big problem on the gold fields.

police

Many of the first police were indidunase Australian men. They were great at being police but many people disagreed and soon the indidunas began to dislike the stuff he had to do so most of them quit.

Theft and robberies

• Cattle horses bank and shop robberies were all common crimes happening on the gold fields. Thieves robbed the claims of both gold and equipment, cut tents and stole goods from stores and from travellers on the road. Horse stealing was very common.

Bushrangers

• Bushrangers were people who committed all sorts of crime. Most of them new the bush really good. A lot of bushrangers were old convicts or ex-miners who gave up trying to find gold. Some were poor miners who couldn't afford a licence but needed money. The bushrangers new the bush like the back of there hand they were really smart too.

bushrangers

Hiding from the policeBushrangers built hide outs and huts to hide from the police out of tree trunks and bark. the bushrangers would steal the fastest horses and ride them to out speed the police to get away. bushrangers sometimes had spies for them to tell them where the police were and what the police were doing. aboriginals sometimes helped the bushrangers too. The aborigines that helped usually didn't like the British or the British did something that the didn't like. police would not suspect the aboridunals to be on the bushrangers sides.

Accidental killings (oops)

• People on the gold fields were so protective and crazy that they would kill innocent people like this man:

• Two miners sleeping there heard the discomposing sound (so like a mouse running up the canvas wall) of a pair of scissors slitting the canvas. A pistol was fired in the direction of the supposed thief, and when the two miners went out to see the result, they found a well-dressed young man lying dead with a bullet in his chest. He did not look like one of the lawless class and it was not at all clear that he had intended robbery. He was buried next day without any information having being obtained in regard to him. This is one of the many ways in which people mysteriously disappeared on the diggings, to be afterwards advertised for by their friends in vain."

•

• Sometimes the people weren’t innocent but were just not thinking straight but still had a right to live like this man : "A man broke into a store and was in the act of carrying away a bag of flour, when a boy, who had been sleeping inside, awoke with the noise, and, following the man outside, told him to put the bag down or he would shoot him. The boy fired, the man fell mortally wounded, and the poor lad, seeing what he had done, began to cry."

• Most men kept dogs chained to their tents and armed themselves, firing their guns to warn intruders off.

the licence

Info on the licence

On the 15th of August 1851, not long after diggers began finding gold in Victoria, La Trobe formally declared their actions illegal, as all minerals were British property. However, knowing that a gold rush could not be stopped, he announced that a license system would be introduced, which would give miners the right to mine a small claim. From the 1st of September onwards, miners could dig an 8ft x 8ft claim for 30 shillings a month.Needs editing

bibliography

• SBS gold http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=79 I used lots of links with the same url that were in the website

• Parry Ann ,riots ,Robberies and Rebellions,The Gold Rushes, south yarra, Macmillan education, 2007.

The end