The Storyteller. THE SEAMY SIDE

Waikato Argus, Volume VII, Issue 491, 23 September 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storyteller. THE SEAMY SIDE

NORTH Polo loneliness is realised by thj first voyager on a crowded Australian steamer, a day or two out. Tt will always be so ; it was ae in the case of Morris Walpen, in 1885, in the s.s. Ispahan. When he saw the Channel pilot go over the side to return to old England, a big lump ciine under his collar, just'as big lumps como under thousands of collars every year. Does the Channel pilot know that he is the most envied man in the world 1 Perhaps. But as to Walpen. He was a youngster, just out of an auctioneer's office at Shrewsbury, going to the unknown with the unknown (in the second class), and in his unspeakable desolation he sought for occupation of the mind in endeavouring to discover by scrutiny of the faces of the old Australians on board what fate had in store for an honest fellow, for he was honest at any rate. He was fascinated by a certain rough, over-dressed, overvoiced, bumptions person,, who, though in first class, roamed at large over the ship, and began to make himself obnoxious by reason of his vulgar display of wealth. His name was Hopcraft—" Dick Hopcraft," according to his own fulsome description, "of Ballarat, the self-made man.'

This Hopcraft was to Walpen as a new biological specimen is to a microscopist, and what chiefly puzzled him was to discover how one so common and unintelligent could have obtained the ample means he evidently possessed. Australia as a wealth-producing country presented new possibilities to Walpen when he contemplated the self-made man. He drew inspirations from Hopcraft, who luckily, was unaware of the fact, else he would have charged 25 pincent, on the draft. " Where he has succeeded, surely I may,' said Walpen to himself. There never was a ship's company in which someone did not know something of someone else. The Ispahan had got into the Mediterranean, and Walpen was lounging on deck, killing time, while time killed him. Around him were a few returning Australians, old diggers, who had involuntarily formed themselves into a yarn club, and who talked of colonial experiences, which was just the topic that most interested him. This particular morning Hopcraft was very demonstrative. Walpen quite by chance asked one of the club how Hopcraft made his money. He hardly hoped for an explanation, but Gibson, who was an old Ballarat man, knew the facts, and recounted them.

' When I knew Hopcrafc—he don't know me now—ho was working with three mates on a rush in a gully back from Ciunes, and they had a bit of luck, like we all had when we began. Mostly we were surfacing, and none of us sank deeper than about fifteen foot or so, and we got real nico gold every dish. But the shallow workings soon gave out,, and one by one the beggars humped their swags, and tried new finds. Hopcraft and his party kept on, however, because they had done so well, and the money they had made they spent in sinking for the deep lead. They got down a matter of 100 ft, and opened out on what they thought was a gutter, but not a speck could they see. Just when they were about to give it up. Hopcraft took a spell off and went into Ballarat, and told the smart, inquisitive shaps there that he and his mates hoped soon to be on gold, which of course, caused a lot of talk. Two days afterwards he was working below by himself when ho gave the signal to the man above, who was driving the horse in the whim, to pull up, and up he went in the bucket, with a dishful of stuff in his hand. His mates were more than curious. They were excited. They came rcund him, and watched him as he washed off. When they saw a few specks left in the dish they felt a bit springy, I can tell you. 1 Where'd you get it V they all asked at once. ' Just at the end of drive. I saw a speck, and picked half a shovelful, and brought it up to try. There's heaps more down there. We're fairly on it now, boys,' he said, all in one breath like.

' All hands went below excepting Hopcraft, who stayed above to work the whim. His mates picked a bucketful, and when il came to the surface, they chucked it into the puddling, and worked it about in water until they got it all fairly broken up. Hopcraft seemed to be as excited as any of them. He bit off a chew of tobacco as if to keep himself calm, lie didn't do any of the work, however. They'd been suspicious if he had, But .he just stood around, and now and again he spit into the tub, just like anyone would do. There was nothing in that, was there ? When they thought they had got the stuff well pounded up, they picked out the big pieces of stone, then drained the water off gently, and putting all that was left into a dish, panned off. Bit by bit as the gravel was washed away they got more and more excited. At last all that .vas left was about two penny-weight of line gold. That knocked 'em.

Each sot to buy the others' shares, but no one would part. By this titno it was nearly dark, so they battened down the shaft and struek off down the gully to a shanty to have a drink. The other chaps who had been hanging on hoping that the Hopcraft party would soon strike it, quickly got to know that something was up, ind there was rare goings on all that night at

the pub. Hopcraft, who gammoned to be drunk, cleared out early, and his mates had too much to notice that he did not return. But he was no more drunk than you or me was.

' lie got a horse and rode into Ballarat, where they were waiting for news. He found some of the chaps he had been pitching to before at the old Greyhound, and, to make a long story short, he sold one of them his fourth share in the claim for £2OOO, one condition being that the buyer was not tu say a word, but to turn up on the mine next morning, at seven o'clock, and make an offer as if he had never seen Hopcraft. Next morning the chaps rolled up in force, and there was quite an excited market at the mouth of the mine. None of the mates'would sell, but at last Hopcraft very reluctantly, to all appearance, let his go at £ISOO to his friend from Ballarat. The real price was £2000,' as agreed upon the night before. Hopcraft got his cheque for £2OOO, and was off at once and cashed it, The other three mates and the new partner worked away all day, but never got colour. They tried again next day, but it was no use. Then they chucked it, and were mad, Hopcraft wasn't. It was the first time anyone had thought of mixing gold with tobacco juice, and he was rewarded for his cleverness, because with the money he got he speculated and made a pile.' 1 Why didn't they put him in goal ?' asked Walpen. ' What for, Sonny V ' For false pretences.'

'No fear. Who was (o prove that he did it V

'Then how do you know he did

' Well, there's a way of knowing things without knowing them ; and everybody knows very well that's how he did it. We are as certain he salted the claim as if we had seen him do it,'

' That reminds me, said another member of the club, ''of a clever trick played on two Chinamen at Fiery Greek when I was there in '57. Some fellows had a claim, but couldn't make much out of it. They were a flash sort, and swelled it about in great style, as if they were on good gold all the time We chaps knew that they had a duffer, and when they wanted to go and sell out, we said, 'Oh, my,' that's all. But they robbed two Chinamen splendidly, They told them that they had made enough out of the mine, and wanted to go to Melbourne for a spree. They would sell for £3OO. The Chinamen went ibelow to try the gronnd, and one of the partners in a huffy sort of way told them they could pick the stuff where they liked- The Chinamen chose a place, and got down about a hundred weight. All the while they were working the white man was dribbling tine gold out of a hole in his pocket down the leg of his trousers on to the heap. The Chinamen took the stuff to the surface, and washed it off in their own cradle and dish, and of course they found gold, and were satisfied. Like Chinamen, however, they bid down tho price, and at last paid £2OO in cash. The settlers cleared out like quicksticks, and when the deluded Chinamen found thoy had been had thoy set off after them. They followed them for six months. They tracked them up to Ararat, and then to Pleasant Creek and across to Avoca, to Simpson's diggings, and on to Forest Creek, but they never could come up with, them. If they had caught them there would have been murder, sure enough, and the white men knew it !'

Walpen was beginning to wonder if Australia still afforded opportunities for such operations. ' That reminds me, ( said a third member. Every man begins a yard on shipboard with the same formula. ' That reminds me how I was once had on the "Woolshed diggings, near Beech worth the place where, you'll remember, they put golden shoes on the horse on the first member of Parliament elected by diggers. My mates and I were doing fairly well, but hot so well as we would have liked. One night we were sitting round the fire, yarning about all sorts of things, "when a fellow named Jack Sullivan came over from his tent to have a pitch. We talked about how he was getting on, and he said that his mato had had a letter from- a man over Chiltern way, named Morgan, who said that he was coming over to see abouv buying their claim It struck one of mates that if the ' show ' was good enough for Morgan to buy it was good enough for us, and he said so. Sullivan was rather offhand, as if he did nob care to sell, but like a fool 1 chipped in and asked the price. ] l.c said they would not mind taking .£IOOO. I thought I knew enough to bid £SOO, but Sullivan would not part. Just as we were going to turn in, however, my mate, thinking he would take him off his guard, suddenly revived the subject, and mailed him with an oiler, of £7OO,

subject to examination. He said they would take that, and then as coolly as you like asked me for the loan of my horse pistol, because he was afraid that, as it was becoming known that he and his mate were on gold, some of the Derwentors who were on the field might be coming over to rob their tent. 1 ijave him the pistol.

' Next morning my mate and I went below his claim, and he told us to take it where we liked. We sampled a patch near the end of a drive, and panned off a very nice prospect. We took another, but found nothing; another, and got a first rate result; another—better than all. It looked good enough and wo closed. That afternoon we drew the money out of the bank and paid it over, and Sullivan and his partner went ovor the Murray into New South Wales. We reckoned we had a good thing on, and set to work, but could not fine a speck. We could not make it out, but there was no doubt we had been had. I went over to Chiltern to see Morgan, and he told me that he had never heard of Sullivan or his mate, and didn't know their claim. The yarn about him was only a ruse. I made up my mind that 1 would get even with the scoundrel some day or other, so I knocked about the different diggings, hoping that I would get him. I got to know how he salted the claim in a very cunning way. One day I was humping my swag from Bendigo to the M'lvor diggings, when I met a drover coming down with some sheep from the New South Wales side. We got chummy, and had tucker together. While talking I happened to mention that I knew a man of the same name as his on the Woolshed, and when I mentioned that place, he asked me if I had ever known a follow named Jnck Sullivan there. I was fly, and said that I thought that 1 remembered the name, just to draw the chap a bit- ' Because,' he said, ' I heard a very sharp thing he did there, and I wanted to know if it was true. He told a fellow that used to work with me that he once salted a claim on the Woolshed and sold it for £SOOO to a mug. He gassed a lot about it, and said that he borrowed the chap's horse-pistol the night before, and, having loaded it with gold, fired three or four times into the face; when the follow turned up with his mate the next day to fry the ground, they took down the stuff at the very phces ho had fired.' I did not let on that I knew anything about it, but getting an idea where he was, I made up my mind to run down Sullivan iF 1 could. But I never got him. I did hear that he came to a bad end, some years later. He had a contract for building a bridge over the Snowy, and tried to swim the horse over in a flood. The horse got from under him, and he was washed down to a tree in the middle of a stream. He clung to the branches, and at last got up, but though his men tried to rescue him, they could not. Next morning ho was not to be seen, and they guessed that he had become exhausted and fallen into the river and been drowned.'

Walpen found a new train for thought .• tho dim prospect was gradually taking shape. Five years after the voyage Mount Bushranger had become the sensational mining property in Australia. As has happened many, many times, men suddenly became immensely rich. Arabian nights were outdone by Australian days ; the element of Eastern romance were seen again in quick changes of fortune which followed the opening of his property. The spirit which might bo uncivily descoibed as avarice, but whose colloquial adjective is ' speculative,' animated men from one end of the continent to tho other ; each desired to possess a Mount Bushranger for himself. There is no reason, of course, why there should bo only one such deposit as was found there. By no means. Therefore, when an apparently well-to-do, sagacious, and experienced ' mining expert,' Mr Morris Walpen, M.E. (which means Mining Euginetr), arrived in Sydney, and made his way quickly into what are called mining circles, he found ready acceptance of his statement that, on two properties he had acquired in the neighbourhood of Mount. Bushranger, he had obtained splendid assays from stuff taken almost from the surface. He had not, so he said, had one disappointment. In some places the returns were good ; in others not quite so good, but in many they were wonderful. The properties were too largo for tho capital at his disposal, but ho was prepared to sell one of them, reserving the other for disposal as he might think best. Some of the keenest investors were interested in his overtures, and, with the fame of Mount Bushranger ringing in their ears, they formed a syndicate to buy one of the area?, subject to examination and assays. The price was fixed. Mr Walpen was to receive j£12,000 in cash on the completion of the purchase, and a tenth of the shares in the company to be subsequently formed. Quite satisfactory to both sides. A competent mining adviser was to be sent to the locality to make rigid tests and report. Mr "Walpen gladly offered to allow him ample facilities for acertaining the value of the ground. He was so frank and open i Before returning to the Held,

however, he went on to Melbourne, whither, by the peculiar telegraphy which operates only betwen mining men, his fame, so to speak, had preceded him. There he found capitalists prepared to consider proposals for the sale of the second block, and what could be more natural than that they should be tempted into a provisional agreement for purchasing it at £15,000 cash, and a tenth of the shares in any company that might be floated to acquire the property. The price was high, but apart from that circumstance the transaction did not differ from hundreds completed every year. The only way that mining speculators can acertaiu when to speculate is to get their, knowledge from those who search for'good things' ' ll) d Mr Walpen, M.E., was regarded as being ' straight.'

The joint interests of the Sydney and Melbourne syndicates were represented by one expert, an honest, clever fellow, quite unknown to Mr Walpen—one whose shrewd reports in many ventures had in some cases saved his principals from being scandalously robbed, and in others enabled them to make exceedingly handsome profits. He was directed to make an exhaustive examination, take ' prospects ' from every part of the ground, make his own tests, and generally to satisfy himself that not alone would shallow working pay, but that there was reasonable belief that deep sinking would enable profitable mining to be carried on permanently. He and Walpen met on the ground. It was virgin soil. Up to that time it had been used as a sheep-run, and not only did it very much resemble the Mount Bushranger areas (which were not far off), but, as a matter of fact, persons had from time to time casually found small specks of gold in some of the watercourses. Altogether, the indications were that the properties were good, and at the outset the expert was favourably impressed. His examination, however, was thorough, and, with the assistance of a trustworthy man whom he had brought from Sydney, he sank holes in number of places, and carefully put samples of the earth into small bags, which he as

carefully sealed and branded to correspond with the marks made on stakes at the places where he had dug, so that there might be no mistake. Walpen did not accompany bin when on this work, In due course the samples were treated in a hut, which Walpen had used for making his own tests some time before, and his implements Were at tho disposal of the expert. The process of testing was simple. Each sample was powdered to a fine dust in a steel mortar, and then ' washed off' in a digger's dish. The expert was careful to see that tho mortar was perfectly clean, and that there was nothing on the pestle nor in the dish calculated to produce better results than the nature of the samples justified. Walpen looked on at the work with studied nonchalance.

The expert found gold in the first essay, equal to 3oz to the ton —very good, indeed. In the next he also got what was equivalent to 3oz ; in the next, lOoz ; then soz. Once he only found 2oz, hut several times the essay ran into the teens, .But he was not satisfied. He picked other samples from ground not previously tried, and put them through the process—again with excellent iesults. Confident then that he had conscientiously discharged his duty, he telegraphed, as arranged, to the syndicates recommending the purchases; and, according to the terms of sale, the amount of the purchase money, which had hcen lodged in banks in Sydney and Melbourne, was immediately available to the vendor, Mr Morris Walpen, M.E. In due course, steps were taken to form the companies originally contemplated, and when the public had subscribed, on the faith of the names of the members of the syndicates, and relying upon the excellent report of the expert, arrangements were made to begin work.

Mr Walpen, it was announced, had left on a short visit to England and on his return, would join the boards of each company. He had hardly been away a week however, when tin; newly-appointed mining manager of the Sydney's company's property telegraphed that he had an importaint communication to make to the directors, and would be down in a few days. The directors could not believe their ears when they heard the officer's report. They appointed two of their number, who returned with him, and checked his investigation. The sudden fail in the value of the shares on the market soon showed that 'the public' had got wind of the true position—in a week or two everyone knew that the whole affair was an atrocious swindle. The shareholders clamoured for an inqury, but what good could an enquiry have done? For his own credit's sake the expert reinvestigated the matter, and found it impossible to obtain any results from the sampling. It occurred to him that the ' salting ' might have been accomplished by injecting fine gold into the bags with a syringe, as had been done once before in his experience, and that .seemed the most feasible explanation;, though by no means convincing. Ho was entirely at a loss, however, to account for the deception otherwise, and was pondering over the theory with the pestle in his hand, when suddenly his eye caught what ap.

peand to be a slight abrasion in (he middle of that tool. He look closely and then discovered to his amazement that there were in many places small holes, which would admit a coarse sewing needle. He sounded them, and found that they ran obliquely from half to three-quarters of an inch, and he saw no reason to doubt that they must have been filled with minute particles of gold which as he pounded the samples would naturally drop into the mortar. To satisfy himself on this point, he charged them with gold dust, and set to work with new samples. Lo! The same good yields as beforei

' It is understood that Mr Morris Walpen, the Australian mining magnate, who recently returned to England on what was intended merely to be a short visit, and who rented Garborton Park, near Maidstone, has decided to settle permanently in England, and is now negotiating for the purchase of that lovely property, In the course of a few weeks it is expected than an announcement will be made of his engagement to the second daughter of Major-General Trowbridge, whom he met in the P- and O. steamer in which the lady travelled on her return from Cairo, at the close of the winter. Mr Walpen, it is well known, has since arriving from Australia been able to turn his intimate knowledge of the mining resources of that country to good account in several very successful operations on Stock Exchange.' — Australia in London.