THE MONSTER NUGGET.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 482, 25 March 1869, Page 3

THE MONSTER NUGGET.

! The " Peripatetic Philosopher " of the Australasian moralises on the dis:overy of the 200 ft nugget in the following strain: — Of course, I always said so. It is D y luck all over. I have worked in jl sorts of claims, begged until I was Earned, and then dug until I was tjenfc double. I have been a " hatter " jnjself, and cursed the powers that be, ID "d scratched the earth with great remlarity, yet I never turned up a nugJet worth £9600, and weighing 200 ft. [ was very near making my fortune (pee, very near. A friend of mine md myself found a fossil elephant in fea ice-field in Kamschatska. I should | 8 ay that the ivory was worth at least p30,000 —one of the tusks was twelve pet thick at the base —but as our dogs Hell ill, and we had no food, I was ■obliged to make tracks for a Moravian Isettlement, some 500 miles to the f southward. Poor S died on the l-jay, and I was obliged to eat part of The remainder sleeps peacefully |in an ice hummock, about 80deg. j4"min. N. I never got the elephant. But to return. I adhere to my opinion [that it is disgusting. Not the £9OOO, [but the fact of sudden enrichment. [Here are two honest, hardworking !men, who do their duty to their country, and vote regularly with the Government. They lead a peaceful, kppy> an d pastoral life—dig in a hole «\1 day, and get drunk religiously at I night. They are respected, admired, and esteemed. Suddenly they find a I nugget, and lo! the whole tenor of ; their life changes. Luck is a very dangerous thing. It has ruined many a man —Hannibal, Ca?sar, Napoleon. I remember at Ems when the Archduke C won 12,000 napoleons from poor St. B ,we all congratulated him upon his luck. He went to Paris that night, and the first man he met was Guizot. All the world knows the unhappy result. Ah ! believe me, my friends, that luck is not always lucky. If I had not been made Secret Minis* ister under Nicholas, I should not be here in rags scribbling nonsense for jou; —but the story would take too long to tell.