Goldfield

“ Intrinsic value didn't figure as the only item in my conception of the worth of a Goldfield mining issue. The millionaires of the camp were not miners by profession and their judgment of the value of any mining property would not have influenced a Guggenheim, a Ryan or a Rothschild to extend so much as $4 on the development of any piece of likely mineral ground. Goldfield was a poor man's camp. And it was making good despite the croakings of school-trained engineers who had turned the district down in the early days, as they did Tonopah. ”

“ No one ever went to or fro without passing through Goldfield. If there was a Greenwater boom, how was it that we in Goldfield, who were in touch with all Nevada mining affairs, did not know about it? Goldfield promoters soon began to give attention. Shortly they caught the infection. A stampede from Goldfield into Greenwater ensued. In fact, people flocked to Greenwater from every direction. A bunch of Tonopah money-getters, headed by the indomitable Malcolm Macdonald, were grabbing the money on Greenwaters in New York, and Goldfield was not in the play. ”

“ From Altman we took a tortuous trail, threading Goldfield, Independence, Victor and Anaconda. The mountains about are honeycombed with prospect holes—or graves they might be properly called, for many of them contain buried hopes. From a distance they look like prairie-dog towns, but occasional shaft-houses and gallows-frames rise here and there to give character to the mining region, while several railroad and electric car lines wind about the hills and gulches.
Many of the cabins in these towns are built of logs; the streets look to have been surveyed by cows rather than engineers. ”

“ Promoters were gibbeted as common bunco men. Peculiarly enough, Bullfrog, younger sister of Goldfield, which has since proved to be such a graveyard of mining hopes, was immune. There men of substance were in control, the writers said, while Goldfield was portrayed as a stamping ground for gamblers and "wild-catters." The stories had their effect even in Goldfield. Leading men of the camp began looking about for new fields to conquer. The majority of Goldfield mine-owners had not "fallen" for Bullfrog, but the success of the Bullfrog stock company promotions in the East inspirited them. ”

“ At this juncture the new mining camp of Bullfrog, 65 miles south of Goldfield, was born. My publicity facilities were sought by owners of properties in Bullfrog "to put the camp on the map."
C. H. Elliott, a Goldfield pioneer, put an automobile at the disposal of myself and my stenographer, and we departed for Bullfrog. ”

“ They went to Goldfield. Shorty showed the sample to Bob Montgomery, an old friend. Bob was skeptical. But in an hour the news was out and Goldfield en masse headed for the new strike. Those, who couldn’t get conveyances, walked. Some pulled burro carts across the desert. Some started out with wheelbarrows. Jack Salsbury began to move lumber. Others brought merchandise, barrels of liquor. Everything to build a town.
“Specimens of my ore,” Shorty said, “were used by Tiffany for ring settings, lavallieres, bracelets. It went to Paris and London. Ore broken from the ledge sold for $50 a pound. ”

“ The Murchison Goldfields became so active that the southern portion was separated from the northern, and named the Yalgoo Goldfield. The mining population of this district was about 750. In 1895 there were seventeen batteries at work around Cue, nine around Nannine, and two at Mt. Magnet. The machinery was valued at £128,111. The East Murchison Goldfield, including Lake Darlot, Mt. Sir Samuel, and certain places on the road from Cue to Lake Carey, was also proclaimed, and a warden was stationed at Lawler, the most central station. ”

“ Out of the Mohawk one car was shipped which yielded over $579,000 and ore in all of the better mines was so rich that Goldfield 51 quickly became the high-grader’s paradise. Though wages at Tonopah were twice those paid at Goldfield, miners deserted the older camp for the lower wage and made more than the difference by concealing high-grade in the cuffs of their overalls or in other ingenious receptacles built into their clothing. Miners and muckers took the girls of their choice out of honkies and installed them in cottages. ”

“ At times, when public interest appeared to lag, the wires were used by the camp's newspaper correspondents to obtain publicity for all kinds of sensational happenings that were common on the desert. Reports of gold discoveries, high play at gambling-tables, shooting affrays, gamblers' feuds, stampedes, hold-ups, narrow escapes, murders, and so forth, were used to rouse the public's attention to the fact that a mining camp called Goldfield was on the horizon. ”

“ IN Coolgardie the name of this prominent citizen dates back almost to its inception. Residents of the goldfield centres generally freely express their appreciation of those men who have by individual and co-operative endeavours sought to bring them credit and fame. Such a manifestation is only fitting when they consider the circumstances surrounding their growth. The individual must in these cases be selfish before he becomes utilitarian. ”

“ Under the land regulations seventy-eight mining leases and licenses, representing 10,876 acres, were held in the Victoria district in 1878. The hopes of Western Australians of obtaining a goldfield were not easily dismissed. Some large sums of money were spent in prospecting and testing. Early in 1869 the Darling Ranges were systematically scanned, and the Government extended the radius within which they offered £5,000 for the discovery of a payable goldfield, now fixing the limit at 300 miles from any declared port of the colony. ”

“ The initial successes of the big display advertising campaigns directed from Goldfield appeared to have been due to the fact that the American public had greeted mining-stock speculation as filling a long-felt want, namely, a channel for speculation in which they could indulge their gambling spirit with comparatively limited resources—resources that were insufficient to give them a "look-in" on the big exchanges where the high-priced rails and industrials are traded in. ”

“ Reuben Waite—The Existence of Gold Reported—The First Prospectors—£1,000 Reward for the Discovery of a Payable Goldfield—Henry Whitcombe—Death of Whitcombe. Lauper Reaches Lake Brunner—Attempts to Reach Westland from Otago—The Caples and Pyke and Clarke Expeditions—Charles Townsend Reaches the Grey—Establishment of Depôt. Albert William Hunt, Stormy Petrel of the Goldfields—Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson—Discovery of Arthur’s Pass—Charles Townsend Drowned—End of 1863. ”

“ The position of Goldfields' Warden on Princetown was vacant, and he was appointed to it. His special fitness for the office need not here be discussed. Many members of good families in England, whose wild ways rendered desirable their removal to another sphere, developed faculties in Australia which elevated them into respectable members of society, which they certainly would not have been had they remained in the old world, surrounded by temptations. ”

“ In my time I have seen and mixed with most prospectors in the West, and as far as my experience goes the best bushmen not only use the compass, but keep a reckoning, rough though it may be, of their day's travel. Such a man is Billy Frost, to quote a well-known name on the goldfields, a man who has had no chance to learn any of the rudiments of surveying, and who started life as a boundary rider on a cattle station. ”

“ They are mostly of mushroom growth, springing up, so to speak, in a night, and perishing surely and utterly when the production of that gold which caused their birth has ceased to be remunerative. Occasionally however, goldfields towns which have sprung into existence in a phenomenally short time remain permanent centres of life and activity. Hokitika, Greymouth, Ross, Westport, and Reefton, as indeed several smaller and less known townships in the interior, are of the latter description. ”

“ While paying due attention to these matters, and especially to railway connection with the various goldfields, Sir John recognises that the landed industries must be stimulated, that the agriculturists and the pastoralists may have encouragement to serve the gold producers, and vice versa. ”

“ A vast irregular society had been suddenly called up throughout the colony, and the Government, somewhat perplexed how to deal with it, had been fain to let the difficulty solve itself by doing nothing, that is to say, although they had appointed paid officers and paid magistrates, who went through a round of duties, and with special strictness—that of collecting the gold mining license of 30s. monthly, as well as other Government dues—yet they had never taken any steps to make the goldfields population socially and politically a part of the colony. ”

“ Goldsmith had now taken a lodging in 12 Green Arbour Court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market, a small yard approached by ‘Breakneck Steps.’ A print of it is in the ‘European Magazine’ for January 1803 (partially reproduced in Forster, 1877, i. 154) . The court was destroyed by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (for a description see Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vii. 233) . Here he used to collect the children to dance to his flute, and made friends with a clever watchmaker. He was beginning to win some reputation as a writer. ”

“ She smiled thereat, and went straightway and fetched the very same raiment, green gown and all, which she had brought to Goldilind in prison that other day, and in which Goldilind had fled from Greenharbour. And when she had done them in the chest above all the other gear, she stood yet beside the horses amidst of the varlets and squires who were gathered there to see the new-wedded folk depart. ”

“ A month thereafter came folk from him to Leashowe, to wit, the new meney for the new abode of Goldilind; amongst whom was a goodly band of men-at-arms, led by an old lord pinched and peevish of face, who kneeled to Goldilind as the new burgreve of Greenharbour; and a chaplain, a black canon, young, broad-cheeked and fresh-looking, but hard-faced and unlovely; three new damsels withal were come for the young Queen, not young maids, but stalworth women, well-grown, and two of them hard-featured; the third, tall, black-haired, and a goodly-fashioned body. ”

“ But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now read the Vicar of Wakefield; it is not the intricacies of the story that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres.
And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have produced such a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings and clubs? ”

“ But Goldilind took all with a high heart, and her courage grew with her years, nor would she bow the head before any grief, but took to her whatsoever solace might come to her; as the pleasure of the sun and the wind, and the beholding of the greenery of the wood, and the fowl and the beasts playing, which oft she saw afar, and whiles anear, though whiles, forsooth, she saw nought of it all, whereas she was shut up betwixt four walls, and that not of her chamber, but of some bare and foul prison of the Castle, which, with other griefs, must she needs thole under the name and guise of penance. ”

“ They rode speedily, and had with them men who knew the woodland ways, so that the journey was nought so long thence as Goldilind had made it thither; and they stayed not for nightfall, since the moon was bright, so that they came before the Castle-gate before midnight. Now Goldilind looked to be cast into prison, whatever might befall her upon the morrow; but so it went not, for she was led straight to her own chamber, and one of her women, but not Aloyse, waited on her, and when she tried to have some tidings of her, the woman spake to her no more than if she were dumb. ”

“ The ancient city of Guildford owes its name and much of its historic renown to its situation on the chief ford of the river Wey, which here makes a break in the ridge of chalk downs running across Surrey. Guildford is mentioned in his will by King Alfred, who left it to his nephew Ethelwold, and became memorable as the spot where another Alfred, the son of Knut and Emma, was treacherously seized and murdered by Earl Godwin, who, standing on the eastern slope of the Hog’s Back above the city, bade the young prince look back and see how large a kingdom would be his. ”

“ To Miss Pauline Goldmark. Silver Lake, N. H., Sept. 14, 1901.
Dear Pauline,—Your kind letter (excuse pencil—pen won't write) appears to have reached London after our departure and has just followed us hither. I had hoped for a word from you, first at Nauheim, then on the steamer, then at Cambridge; but this makes everything right. How good to think of you as the same old loveress of woods and skies and waters, and of your Bryn-Mawr friends. May none of the lot of you ever grow insufficient or forsake each other! ”

“ Here at once our interest in the story begins: is this Lissoy the sweet Auburn that we have known and loved since our childhood? Lord Macaulay, with a great deal of vehemence, avers that it is not; that there never was any such hamlet as Auburn in Ireland; that The Deserted Village is a hopelessly incongruous poem; and that Goldsmith, in combining a description of a probably Kentish village with a description of an Irish ejectment, "has produced something which never was, and never will be, seen in any part of the world." ”