THE LOST NUGGET.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8765, 16 March 1907, Page 4

THE LOST NUGGET.

Mr William Anderson, a SytTuey entertainer, is a consummate advertiser, To attract people to his wonderful City at Bondi ho bought a nugget of gold worth £2O. and buried it in the beach below his_ city announcing that he or she who found it' could keep it. There was ouo condition ; all who would seok the , buried treasure must first buy a spade from him for sixpence. Tins stipnlatiou landed him in a diiucnlty. When every shop and warehouse had been ramaacked only 1000 spades were available, and many thousands wanted to dig. Having , got their toy spado the. crowd ; gathered at the barricade which kept them from the beach until the signal was given. A Wonderful employee clambered on. an elephant, and explained that thirty-six boxes had been buried, thirty-five of which wore delusions, and the thirty-sixth contained the nugget. When the | gun went the crowd rushed through the narrow entrance, amid the shrieks of women and children, and fell to digging furiously for the nugget, watched by many thousands at higher points. Every part of the beach, says the Daily Telegraph, was filled with men, women and children, sitting, standing or kneeling. “Here was a grey-headed woman on her knees with her lap full of sand and her arms working convulsively, there was a father and two small sous digging in a triangle ; yonder and youdor wore fashionablydressed ladies delving and scratching and fossicking below the surface. Some worked quietly and steadily; i others ran from place to place ; many j broke their spades in thoir excite- | ment. In five minutes the beach was like a buffalo wallow, but the sand had not given up its treasure.” Every now and then a dig»ger would jump, up from a crowded position, as if stung, and it would bo seen that he had a box in his hand. In a moment, he would ho surrounded and jostled till it became known that the box was duo of 'the 35 empty ones, and the crowd would laugh and resume digging. Most of the' diggers tired of their work at the ond of threoquarters of an hour, and left the beach, hut hundreds worked on with an earnestness of purpose that conquered disappointment, aching arms and sore hacks. They dug ou over old and new ground, but all to no purpose. Nobody found the nugget. Mr A Anderson was disappointed at the result, and decided to give £3O, the worth of the nugget, to the Children’s Aid Society. The Daily Telegraph calls the scene ' a pageant of greed and curiosity. ’ ’