The Opelousas courier., 1904-10-29
TREASURES IN QUEER PLACES.
F:=h Find of Workmen in the River
Dove Many Years Ago.

DoVS Many Tears HSo.
Hidden treasurer has an irresist-
ible attraction for the human race.
On the slightest hint from seer or
fortune teller some one is sure to dig
where the buried treasure is supposed
to be, and disappointment does not
discourage another attempt when an
other tip" is received. Very few
have ever come upon hidden treas
ure, and the few have found is uneX-
pectedly, says the Boston Transcript.
Take, for instance, that romantic
unearthing Of 200,O 900 coins in the
bed of the River Dove, in Stafford
shire, seventy-two years ago. Some
workmen we're engaged in removing
a mudbank which had formed in the
centre of the river when one of them
was amazed to find on raising his
spade that it glittered with silver
coins.
Attracted by the digger's exclama"
ti0n of establishment and delight, his
felloW-Workmen hurried up, and in a
moment half a dozen men were fight
ing and scrambling for the treasure,
~feverishly filling their pockets, their
hats and beer cans with silver coins,
which were worth their weight in gold
for they were of the time of the first
two Edwards, and had lain in the
river for five hundred years. That
the bulk of the treasure trove was
ultimately claimed by the Duchy OF
Lancaster matters little, for it's find
ers had already appropriated scores
of thousands of the precious disks.
Only two years later a rev village
boys were playing at marbles on
Sunday afternoon in a field near Bea-
worth, in Hampshire, when one OF
them caught sight of a piece of lead
projecting from a cart rut in a rough
road that crossed the pasture. Tug
ging at the strip of metal he disclosed
a hole, and through the exposed open
ing he saw a pile of glittering coins,
bright as if fresh from the mint. To
fill his pockets and those of his play
mates was the work of a few mo-
ments, and SO little did the young
sters appreciate the value of their
discovery that on their way home
they amused themselves by fiinging
the coins into the village pond.
Ultimately nearly seven thousand
coins were recovered from the buried
treasure chest, and they proved to be
of the reigns of William | and Will
lam H., and in a wonderful state Of
preservation.
A similar discovery was made near
Wetherby, in Yorkshire, when a
heavy cart passing over a country
road stuck in a rut, and on being re-
leased disclosed a number Of silver
coins which had escaped from the
burst lid OF a chest hidden under the
roadway. It was assumed that the
chest of coins had been buried there
in the perilous days of the civil war,
and that the gradual sinking of. the
road and the weight of the passing
cart had at last brought it again to
the light of day.
In the year 1916 a most valuable
deposit of treasure was revealed in
the strangest fashion at Cuerdale,
near Preston, in Lancashire. Some
laborers were digging near the banks
of the River Ribble when the pickax
of one of them struck something
harder than earth and more yielding
than rock. On removing his pick he
found transhxed at the end of it a
large ingot of silver. Plying his tool
with renewed vigor, he Don discov-
cred wealth consisting of scores of
silver ingots weighing in all over l.
600 ounces.
Similar fortune befell a couple OF
1aborers who were digging in a ditch
near glastonbury, in Somersetshire,
when they unearthed an ancient chest
full Of coins Of the days Of the Stu
arts. They took samples Of the coins
to a neighboring %antiquary Of wealth,
who not only paid the men a large
sum for their treasure, but purchas-
ed a or more acres of land ad-
jacent to the lucky ditch. And here,
the irony of fortune is well illustrated
for although the antiquary spent
thousands of pounds in buying and
e~xcavating his land, not a single coin
was discovered beyond those which
a stroke of the spade had. revealed.
This is the kind of trick fortune
loves to play on designing man. Not
very many years ago, when the
matched roof of an ancient cottage
near Ripon was removed a rich nest
of 5-guinea gold pieces was discov-
cred hidden away under it. When
the news of this treasure trove came
to the ears Of a neighboring land
owner he was so fired by the lust OF
gold that he forthwith purchased
a dozen similar cottages in the dis
trict and had them all pulled down,
but not a solitary coin was found in
exchange for the $4,000 the expert
ment cost him.
The Only Obligation.
A story that ONE from a country
region not far from New York con.