"GOLD, BY JINGO!"

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 463, 9 February 1869, Page 3

"GOLD, BY JINGO!"

A series of American notes is appearing in Dickens's " All the Year Round." The following incident has, perhaps, been told before, but still it is so characteristic that it is worth repeating. In California a miner had died in a mountain digging, and, being much respected, his acquaintances resolved to give him a "square funeral," instead of putting the body in the usual way in any roughly made hole, and saying by way of service for the dead, " Thar goes another bully boy, under!" They sought the service of a miner, who bore the reputation of having at one time of his career, been " a peaceful preacher in the States." And then, Far Western fashion, all knelt around the grave while the extemporised parson delivered a prodigiously long prayer. The miners, tired of this unaccustomed opiate, to wile away the time, began fingering the earth digger fashion, about ; the grave. Gradually looks were exchanged?

whispering increased, until it became loud enough to attract the attention of their parson. He opened his eyes and stared at the whispering miners. " What is it boys ?" Then, as suddenly his eyes lighted on pparkling scales of gold, he shouted, " Gold, by jingo ! and the richest kind o' digging— the congregation's dismissed !" Instant!y every- man began to prospect the newdigging, our clerical fweud not being the least active of the number. The body had to be removed and buried elsewhere, but the memory of the incident yet lives in the name ot the locality, tor " Dead Man's Gulch " became one of the richest localities in California.