Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-11-16
alisesllansuus gsaains.
THE WEALTH FINDERS.
Many of Them Hav Died In Wretohed
Poverty,

Poverty.
Recent dispatches from Colorado
Springs carried the announcement OF
the death of Bob Womack, a man de-
pendent on charity Recently, also, the
cable from Melbourne told that Francis
Webster had died in the poor house at
Ballarat, Australia What doth 1t
profit a man if he find great wealth
and If the find wreck his life? Life
must have been one continual tragedy
for Bob Womack, as, when doing odd
chores around his sisters boarding
house he looked out over the great
Cripple Creek gold fields, which he had
discovered and which have become the
source Of $250.000,000 Of the worlds
gold. Yet he sold his life-and the find
was his life-for $500. And as old
Francis Webster sat idly in the Bal
larat benevolent asylum he looked over
on that famous south hill out Of which
he had lifted boulders of pure gold such
as the world had never dreamed OF
even in fiction. The welcome Mug
get" alone weighed 165 pounds avoir-
dupois.
Both these men had dreamed OF great
valleys Of gold, but certainly their
dreams were nothing to compare with
the gold they enabled others to find.
First they dreamed Of gold and all OF
the remainder Of their lives they
dreamed Of what they had lost. There
often Is a distressing connecting link
between great, sudden. wealth and the
poor house. The death Of these two
men on opposite sides Of the earth COM
ing so close together serves to recall
the uncertainty Of windfall riches.
Three years ago William Deeson died
In an Australian poor house His name
will always be known in mining his
tory, for he lifted out Of mother earth
the greatest lump Of gold that she has
ever yielded. It was 210 pounds Of
gold, so pure that it "cut like a Ches-
hire cheese"
With the possible exception Of the
Witwatersrand probably no other small
area has ever produced wealth equal
to that which the Comstock lode has
yielded, yet Patrick Mclaughlin and
Peter O'Riley died paupers-McLaugh-
lin filing pauper grave, and ORiley
wearing out his disappointed life pros
pecting alone And Henry Comstock,
beggared, and suffering from delusion,
ended his miserable life with bullet.
So the tragedies Of lives not nodded
to enjoy or to be cursed with great
wealth might be enumerated almost
without limit. The tragedies have by
no means been limited to precious me-
tails or to individuals. The finding Of
the land, and the greatest gold deposit
the world has ever known, lost the
Beers their nation; the child Of Schalk
Van Niekirk, that one day happened to
carry one of the shining pebbles from
the Orange river up to the house, where
1t was rolled around as a marble un-
til its sparkle opened the greatest dia-
mond fields in the history Of the world,
Is q poor wanderer on the face Of the
globe today while the find even robbed
the Van NielSirds Of their humble home.
The tragedy Of the negro shepherd
who found the great Bahia diamond
fields is only equalled by the tragedy
Of the convict that discovered gold in
Australia The former, when he offer
ed for inspection $4,000 Of as pure
gems as the world has ever seen, was
arrested and returned to his master
under severe punishment and suspi-
cion, while the diamonds were confis-
Gated. But the poor New South Wales
convict that brought in the sman mug
get that was the open sesame to fields
that have yielded s2,500,00O,000 Of
gold, suffered not only loss Of the mug
get, but commitment to hard labor and
$50 stripes "laid on" for having melt
ed down the case Of a stolen gold
watch."-Indianapoli News.