Enquiries were made, and it transpired that Hanslip had called on a Mr. Marks and offered to sell him the gold before he called on Mr. Newton. Marks had agreed, and sent a man with Hanslip to the Adelphi to fetch the gold, so that it might be weighed. On their arrival Hanslip had fumbled about with his key for several minutes and could not open the door of his room. He said he believed the door must have been nailed up. He got it open at last, and when they went in the first thing they saw was the ripped bag and a few grains of gold scattered about on the hearthrug. Another carpet bag had been turned out, and the clothes scattered about the room. It was after this that Hanslip went to Mr. Newton's, who advised him to give notice to Mr. McLerie, the Police Superintendent. Hanslip went to Mr. McLerie's office, and afterwards had a handbill printed offering £1000 reward for the recovery of the gold. Information was to be addressed to "George Hanslip, Esq." The result of the police enquiries was that Hanslip was himself arrested and charged with having stolen the gold. On enquiries being made, it was discovered that he had left the jewellery entrusted to him at his lodgings in Melbourne. He was convicted, but in consequence of his previous good character he was let off with a comparatively light sentence. But for the unfortunate dispute between the Government and the diggers over the licence fee, it is probable that the bushrangers might have been disposed of in less time than they were. That dispute culminated at the end of 1854, in a fight between the more violent section of the diggers and the military. Although the military won in the conflict on the Eureka, the diggers were the actual victors, and during the year 1855 they were granted all that the moderate party had previously asked for. With the settlement of this vexed question the police were relieved from their task of harrying the diggers, and devoted their time to the suppression of bushranging so successfully, that in the latter half of 1855 the Government proposed to make a considerable reduction in the police force. The _Ballarat Times_, the _Bendigo Advertiser_, and the various newspapers in Melbourne and Geelong protested strongly against this proposed reduction. The gold digging organs predicted an immediate increase in bushranging and other forms of lawlessness, but when the reduction was made in 1856, these predictions were not fulfilled. No doubt many of the bushrangers were captured and punished as horse-stealers. The two crimes have always been intimately related in Australia. Horses were a necessity to bushrangers, and a man who would steal a horse would not be likely to hesitate to stick up an unarmed man if money or gold might be obtained by that means, and they were quite as liable to be arrested while stealing a horse as when robbing a man. For two or three years it was almost impossible for any honest man to keep a horse. Perhaps