Daily Kennebec journal., 1884-05-12
8iiBfellaneons
ni,sr. Dissise % nnsss.
Mg. COywAY's OBSERVATIONS AMONG
THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD MINES.

Gold costs a good deal. So I thought
o-day when was sinking into narrow
crave. little more than . yard square, 800
feet into the earth. For their eight hours
daily toll in this Hades each miner obtains
aI Is. a sum whose smallness amazed me.
The Ballarat mine Is owned by company
which toiled for some years without much
result on ground where the first discover
ers had found much geld few feet deep.
They sunk shaft very far down, they
battled with flood and sand six years be-
fore they reached success-S5OOO per day.
Now. at the end of twenty-five years, the
company can count over $50, ,OOO, 600 as
its gains. And yet the mud and CRIME OF
il, the subterranean slime and cold. the
unsunned existences passed in digging
down there, combined into symbol OF the
Quantity of dirt, darkness, drudgery, and
unhappiness, through which, in America
as we'll as Ballarat, many must pass be-
fore gold can be piled up! That serpent
on the English sovereign must eat the dust
all its days.
So far as can learn, comparatively few
of the great fortunes of Australia have
been built up on gold mines. As we drove
through Ballarat many houses were point
ed out far sunken in the earth by reason
of the excavations beneath them, and the
wealth excavated appears to have largely
rested on similarly insecure foundation.
In old German folklore it is said that they
who would dig successfully for hid treas
ure must work in silence and fulfill certain
formulas demanded by fatal guardians of
such things-a single word. neglected
form, being enough to bring not only fail
ure but danger. The real conditions OF
wealth are not less stern than the
legendary, They are not to be met by
riding horses shod with gold, though that
made one Cameron famous in 1856. Few
of the diggers could have fulfilled all the
dread conditions of obtaining riches, fail
ure in the least OF which may turn fine
ores to DEVILS dust. or to chains more
CALLING than iron. There are true legends
haunting these Australian goldfields which
sometimes sound as if invented by some
sage to teach the vanity of mere luck. A
poor wretch finds thousand-pound mug
get and sleeps no more.
There is in Victoria town of ruined
houses-Matlock. Its life began in 1864,
with a rush of diggers. The last inhabi-
tant left in 1879. In that Is years Mat
lock had found fortune and seen it turn
to dross. The diggers lost their wits, as
at Ballarat. lit their pipes with bank notes
and PLAYED at skittles with bottles of wine.
.'On one OCCASION" says Mr.. r.Southerland.
1.-TWO lucky miners laid wager about
which of them should treat the assembly
with the largest shout The first one
ordered several dozens of the most expen-
sive wines. far more than the company
could be expected to drink with the ut
most diligence But the other eclipsed
this effort by ordering out the landlords
whole stock of champagne. amounting to
about two hundred bottles. 1t was brought
and disposed of in every absurd way that
reckless ingenuity could invent. This
sort of conduct ruined many of the dig
gers" Deeson the poor man who went
out one day with his children's cries for
bread ringing in his ears and returned
with the nugget ("Welcome Stranger'O
that sold for $50, 900, was a man of good
personal habits, but soon fell into poverty.
He did not know when he had enough.
He invested his fortune in machinery. and
lost it all. He toiled on through life in
poverty hundred yards from the spot
where single stroke of his pick turned
up fortune.-M d. Con,cay's Ballarat
Letter 10 Cincinnati.