VANISHING GOLD NUGGET

Evening Star, Issue 22142, 24 September 1935, Page 11

VANISHING GOLD NUGGET

AH AFRICAN MYSTERY Somewhere in tile world io-day is a monster gold nugget ifrhich keeips on vanishing in most mysterious circumstances. Mr E. W. Jakins, a former digger in Tanganyika Territory, is the -finder.,of this remarkable chunk of gold •round which native Africa has woven teles of the occult. Now, : in London, he described his find and- the- mystery of the nugget’s disappearance (says the London ‘People’) When it first came into his possession it weighed 930 z and was worth about £7OO. “ It was a lecord size nugget for that part of the country,” Mr Jakins said, u and, foolishly perhaps, 1 did not send it at once to-the. bank. I locked it in a table drawer, where I kept some other gold worth about £6OO and £l5O in cash. When next 1 opened the drawer the nugget had gone, but the other gold and money had not been touched. “ If it was theft, there was only one man in the whole district who could have committed it, for he had the run o£ my place. But we searched his house itr vain. We searched so thoroughly that hy the time we had finished the house was only good for burning—and he-burnt it down that very night, then vanished. “Some time afterwards the nugget was found in what bad been his fowlhouSe, but a chunk bad been chipped off, reducing its weight to about 80oz. I kept the discovery absolutely secret, and sent the nugget off with a smaller parcel of gold to ray bank at Dar-es-Salaam. . “ A few days later I received acknowledgment of the smaller parcel, but no word of the nugget. It hadn’t arrived to this day. It was posted secretly and registered along with the other parcel. ‘‘And what has happened to it is as much a mystery to me as it is to the natives, who seem to believe that it possesses a hoodoo.” '