GIBBSTON.

Dunstan Times, Issue 492, 22 September 1871, Page 3

GIBBSTON.

—o— The winter has now passed, and the present fine weather has given an impetus to sluic’ag operations. The ranges are all well cowed with snow, and the flow of water is quite as large as the races are capable of carrying. Sam. Williams’s party (near Mcrven Ferry) are busy sluicing away, tad with good prospects. This party have so ( mounted great difficulties, and their patience and perseverance has been pretty severely tested ? for, after bringing in their race, they found that the channel gave way in several places and they were eventually compelled to have recourse to fluming, the timber for which had to be “ packed” over very steep ranges. Evan Boherts’s party have been engaged, during the last six months, in constructing a water-race to Gentle Annie Gully, near Moonlight. They have now finished the race, a quantity of timber having to be used for fluming. The party have also cut a tail race, and tested some ground, the result proving satisfactory. The gold is coarse, and there is a large extent of ground commanded by the race. ■ K The “ Tunneling Party,” near here, are and have been doing very well, and there is every indication ef their future prosperity. On Mondav evening last the Kentucky Minstrels gave their popular entertainment, ■which was very well attended, and the clever performance of the tronp appeared to give universal satisfaction, and elicited frequent bursts of applause.

THE BRITISH WORKMAN. If you can only bring your mind to enter into his exuberance, the British workman, when he is out on his holiday, is the most humorous and harmless of good fellows, Only fancy now—a large party turned out of the Greenwich Sewage works last Saturday, to spend their “bean-feast’’ at Sidcup. Their employer was with them; so was the solicitor of “thefirm.” The day was fine; it was a holiday; the number of participants was sufficient to evoke the electrical spark of mutual rapture; they were wild, jolly, enthusiastic. As they had to pass within a mile or two of the residence of the exEmperor of the French at Chiselhurst, they thought they might as well give him a “chivelry” as any one else. So they turned out of their way, marched up to the front of Camden House, ordered their band to play “God save the Queen” and “Auld Lang Syne,” and then cheered lustily. Well, there was loyalty in this, and there was sympathy, though it was boisterous. So Napoleon came out with his wife, and the boy for whom he risked all and lost all, and he acknowledged the tribute paid him, taking it in the simple way in which it was offered. Then the workmen nudged each other, in the hope of finding'some one of their number, who could express to the late Emperor the mingled emotion of their own joyousness and their sympathy for one whom they thought could not be so happy; and, falling everybody else, they hit upon the solicitor of the firm —as being a man having thegift of speech—to perform the part of'delegate. Catching the enthusiasm of the moment, the good man said what there was to say, and left it. Wereupon Napoleon replied, in a voice “broken by emotion,” stating that which was absolutely true, namely, that he had tried to be a good friend to England. “So you have been," “We know it,” “Hurrah,’’ said the assembled workman. And now as they wanted to get away to their amusements and their dinner the assembled workman instructed their band—humorously enough, perhaps, to strike up “We may be happy yet;” and so jauntily went on their way. We notice that some of our contemporaries have fallen very heavily both upon the ex-Emperor and upon the British workman on account of this mutual ebulliton of feeling. We do not know why. The work, men meant iv. harm: they thought that in the greatness of their temporary release from toil, they could afford to do an unfortunate personage, who had been far above them in station, a good turn, and they did it in their own way. The ex-Emperor—what could he do? Here were two or three hundred serenaders conferring the honour of their applause upon him. Was he morosely to stay in the house? Not in the least. Like a gentlemen, he took the atention of the act, and he came out and acknowledged it. And as to his emotion—which has been sneered at—might he not well be moved at the contrast presented between the exuberant jollity of the British workman and the oppugnant, murderous purpose of the ouvriers of Paris. —The Graphic,