A DEAD MINING TOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 54, 14 June 1884, Page 7

A DEAD MINING TOWN.

Thicrk is in Victoria a town of ruined Louies-— M.itloek. Its life began in 1864, with «i rush of diggers. The last inhabitant left in 1879. In the fifteen years Matlock had fouud a fortune and seen it turn to dross. The diggers lo«t their wits as at Ball.irut, lit their pipes with bank note* and played at bkittles with bottles of wine. "On one occasion," says Mr Sutherland, " two lucky diggers laid a wage'- about which of them should tivat the assembly with the largest 'shout!' r rhe fii^t one ordered several dozens of the most expensive wines, far more than the company could be expected to drink with the utmost diligence. But the other completely eclipsed this effort by ordering out the landlord's whole stock of champagne, amounting to about two hundred bottles. It was bought and disposed of in every absurd way that reckless ingenuity could invent. This sort of conduct ruined many of the diggers." Deeson, the poor man who went out one day with his children's cries for bread ringing in his ears, and returned w'th the nugget (Welcome Stranger") that sold for iiIO.OUO, was a man of good personal habits, but he soon fell into poverty. Ho did not know when he had enough, lie invested his fortune in macuinery and lost it all. He toiled on through life in poverty a hunbred yards from the spot where a single stroke of his piok turned up a fortune. — Moncure De Con way 'B Australian Letter.