THE PALMER GOLDFIELD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 633, 5 June 1874, Page 3

THE PALMER GOLDFIELD.

•: wi*j. i. (QITEENSJ.AXDEB, April 24.) The following extract from a latter written by Mr F. J. W. Beard more recently of Rockhampton, but now of Gooktowh, is published in last Saturday’s Bulletin : “ When I reached the digging’s Tj found on ly 500 men on the ground, the rest having left from the scarcity of rations. The place' has been greatly over-rated, and I am certain that half the men I saw w : ere not making enough to keep themselves in rations, Some good finds havc'bcen made, but not anything likejreports down south. Men never dug imywberqhindexfsuch disadvantages as at the Palmer. For instance, it takes an ounce of ; gold to keep a man a week in, rations. Add to this that quite half the time is spent in looking and travelling for it, and sometimes the distance of thirty or forty miles. The butcher’s shop is far r away from the work, and no salt pan bo had, therefore the diggers have to go fifteen or twenty miles twice a week to get fresh beef. It is really a wonder that then stay thero"‘at all during the'wet weather. The river has not boon worked for three months, and will not be workable for six weeks ydt, and in that lies all the hopes of the Palmer. The gullies are very patchy, and only one or two have turned out at all well. A gully claim c->n be worked nut in less than two weeks, the rock being very bare, therefore it is but fossicking, an.! the gold is very irregularly distributed. When ajmad is) opened, and rations become plentiful and cheap, the Palmer will be a splcndidjfield, for all can get a little, but no field could stand as this now is— rationsfdear and'scarce and so much time lost. The present rush is premature, and there will be a dreadful mess here for the next three months, for threefourths of those gone up wilt ccrr.e hack penniless and starved, and it will go hard with the storekeepers here I am certain. I can foresee nothing but misery, starvation and crime for three months but after that prosperity is certain. When I say that 1 sent my horses back to the Palmer packed with rations.at 2s. peril)., you will under, stand the prices there. There has not hesu the distress on the Palmer as is reported down south. Flour fins never been more than 3v per lb., and he would be a bold man who 'w on Id propose to rise it beyend that, for the diggers would 3mu mob him. They have sot their faces against any further rise. I brought down a splendid led specimen having geld all through it. 1 saw the not' and fed -certain fiat the P timer will bo- a fine reeling district in time, but no one can look at them now, as (be prospect of machinery is so -distant, and rations are so dear.”

Another correspondent writes as fn’. lows :—“ The return rush li is now fully sot in, and of the hundreds that are coming down now, a groat many are pcinilcss men. There is no work to be had. and that they will bo desperate lias already boon proved in the case of the Florence Irving. There some forty men stowed themse’ves away over night, rnd next morning when the muster was made, of co iv.so'they were easily discovered, but. they would not go ashore, as they said they were utterly without money, anl r.s long as they pot out of that they did not care if they had to g>to ga ;1. Pin ling it unless to force the men tmmbted, tho captain sent for the constabulary, who came down. They were unarmed, then, and it was very c-'sily soon that they were not of the slightest use against so many, and they went away and brought their arms with them ; but it was a good thing fo-all concerned that they did not use them, as when one man was hit over the head with a ro, o' ver and foiled, the groan 1 hat come from the mob ashore was intense ; and when the policemen soVl Hie men, and were dragging them into the 1 cats to take tiiern ashore, the men—some six or seven hund-t d —who were on he bank, picking up the stones (wirli whien the beach were thickly strewn), soon ma le tho position untenable for the policemen, and they even continued pelting till the men themselves went up. Fortunately no serious hurt was done, only one policeman getting hit, aid one of the cabin windows being broken.”