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linking Pozzi with his cultural roots. After years of stmggle against the upper classes,
Leonardo revealed himself sympathetic toward a political party with socialist ideals, his
great disappointment being that Australia, the land of opportunity, had failed to offer a
fair deal to all who had made the country their home.^^ This disappointment might
represent a 'natural' peasant affinity with Australia's working poor; it also reflects
political sympathies with Ticino's left-wing liberal party.
In 1902, at 69 years of age, Stefano sold out of the Star Hotel and
concentrated his efforts on his mine and property at Italian Hill. The hotel went up for
auction on 22 March 1902, the newspaper advertisement describing it as:
having a frontage of 28 feet to Vincent Street by a depth of 330
feet through to Duke Street, to which it has a frontage of 49
feet, six inches ... a substantially built two storey brick and
wooden building ... containing bar, two billiard parlours, billiard
room, dining room, sitting room, seven bedrooms, kitchen and
offices.^'
The dimensions of the establishment reflect Stefano's financial achievements in
Australia as well as the high public profile he had eamed as a businessman in
Daylesford. The hotel passed through several hands before it was pulled dovm in 1911
to make way for the constmction of the Alpha Hall and two shops. Withdrawing from
an active business life, Stefano maintained his mining interests: he was on the Board of
Directors of the Cornish Mines and had great faith in the payable quality of the stone
lying around Cornish HJU.^* He worked hard to secure the continuing operations of
the Old Cornish Mine when it was in the hands of the North Cornish Company but was
out-voted.
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