AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 August 1926, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

' Australia & N.Z. Cable Association.] SYDNEY EELICS. SYDNEY. Aug. 29. That Sydney’s early historians are unusually busy just now is not surprising. for the old times are being vividly recalled in all directions by the excavations that are going apace for the underground railway. Grisly relics of one of Sydney’s first burial grounds, for example, are being revealed by the excavations right in front of the Town Hall. "When the first burial ground near Dawes Point, the jumping off place of •the harbour bridge, was considered to be too close to the military quarters the burial ground on the present Town Hall site was selected because it was “out of town.’’ As a matter of fact, at that time, it was in the scrub. For many years, even after the ground was closed, Sydney’s youth played the national game of “heading ’em” behind the tombstones. GOLD IN SYDNEY. SYDNEY, July 29. For the men working there in connection with the underground line, Hyde Park, one of the few city parks of which Sydney was proud before itwas bruised and battered for the ‘tube” railway, is regarded as something of an El Dorado. The fact that one of the labourers picked up. only a day' or two ago, a nugget worth £3l. recalls other finds of gold in the same locality. No one seems to know precisely how the gold came to he there, in the very heart of the city. One man asserted, on the discovery of the first bit of gold’there in 1922. that the hidden wealth had been placed there bv bis father in 1864. Another theory, that the gold is the proceeds of a robbery, is upset by the fact that it' has been discovered over a large area, fifty yards separating some of the nuggets. The theory which is regarded as the most reasonable, is that the gold came, from Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, facing the Park. This Cathedral was burnt down in 1865, and the debris was used to fill in portions of the Park. While holy relics and altar furniture were saved, it is considered highly probable that some of the gold and brass vessels, since thickly coated with earth, were never recovered. The discovery of brass, to the disgust of the finders, ns well as gold nuggets, seems to strengthen this theory.