AN OLD CHUM'S EXPERIENCES OF THE EARLY DAYS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1848, 10 May 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN OLD CHUM'S EXPERIENCES OF THE EARLY DAYS.

By R. P. WHITWORTH.

" Youus must have been a strange life, ttaek c it altogether, I should say," said I to my old crony, Joe Pennythorne, as we sat together last Christmas Day after dinner, smoking on the verandah. The goose had been a prime one, the roast beef the best of its kind, the plum pudding, well too rich, if anything, and the bottle of port, fit, as Thackeray aptly puts it, for the gills of a bishop. Yhe young folks had gone for a walk on the beach, for the day was a lovely one, and the fresh sea breeze was pleasant on that hot midsummer's afternoon. My wife was indulging in forty winks, the reward of a good dinner and a good conscience, and Joe and I sat, as I have said in the verandah, shaded from the afternoon sun by a thick screen of pink flowering dolichoa, smoking our pipes, and chatting about old times and the many changes we had seen since we first met years ago on the Turon diggings, for Joe and I had been mates in those rough and ready days, and although circumstances had separated us for years, had seen many ups and downs together. " A strange life," said Joe, musingly, omitting a long whiff of smoke before he spoke. " Well, yes, I dare venture to say that a good many folks would say so, if they knew it. What would you suppose how I was when I was a youngster ? " I perpetrated the old time-worn joke of imagining he must have been a baby in arms. " Well, yes, I suppose I must," he replied, " although mind you, I wouldn't swear that, for I was brought up, or rather, dragged up rough, very rough." It will be observed that 1 Joe didn't know much abont the difference between adverbs and adjectives, and as for the rulea of syntax, I quession if he'd ever heard of them. Still he was a clever fellow, a genius in his selftaught way, a man respected and even looked up to by scientific men of far greater pretensions as regards mere book learning; no mean artist, to some extent a geometrician, an admirable modeller, a thoroughly practical chemist, and, in Bhort, a clever and capable man, a3 unobtrusive as he was olever, and as modest as he was capable. I had ventured on our long friendship to say to him, when he had been telling me in his unosientatious way of some repairs he had been doing to a broken piece of sculpture which he spoke of as an ordinary thing, although it was such a matter as might have puzzled many a clever artist, requiring as it did a thorough knowledge of anatomy, " Joe, old man, I've often thought what a pity it is that you didn't receive a thoroughly good education. Lordl what a man you might have been to be sure." He waved his pipe, blew away a cloud of smoke and a little sigh at the same time, and Baid, "Ah 1 nobsdy knows that batter than me. Why, I never was at school more than three weeks in my life, at twopence a week. I'll tell you a little about myself if you like." " I should like it of all things," said I, and so I got his story, which I found so interesting, and withal so marvellous, that I venture to reproduce it. "I wa3 born in London about fifty-five years since, and the first thing I can recollect was having to nurse my younger brother. My father was a kind of building contractor, or contractor's foreman, making first-rate wages, hardly ever less than a pound a day, that is to say, when he did, or would, work, which was only occasionally, for, although I say it, he was a brute, who drank all he could earn, and often left my poor mother and us children without food or fire. "As I told you, I never had but three weeks' schooling, for before I was nine years of age I had to go to work at the buildings, you may think how little I was, when I tell you that the bricklayers' labourers used to carry me up as high as three storeys in their hods. My father used usually to take say money, and even at that age I used to walk as much as four or five miles at night, through the mud and rain it might be, to earn a few pence thrown into the ring by putting on the gloves for the edification of the blackguard denizens of a low boxing saloon. " Ah I it was a hard life, but it waß either that, or no food maybe, at home. Well, there was one good thing, it taught me one thing that I never forgot, how to take my own part, and although you know I'd rather run a mile than fight a minute, it has stood me in excellent stead more than once. V "Well, amongst knocks, And kicks, and cuffs, and hardships, I grew up, and was soon counted good at, my trade^a'-plaflterer, untile storage to say, at sixteen (altaough- 1 looked' more) I was made foreman oW a luge job, at full men's wa^esMx^ , i&was I, found

out the ncce^ify of learn ing fo cast accoants (I could barely read aud write), bo 1 got an old Irish labourer who had been fairly educated to teach me arithmetic, and especially how to measure up quantities. " I also used to pay half-a-crown a week to learn drawing and applied geometry, and to my surprise and delight was made a member of the Eoyal Academy, having passed an examination in the construction of spiral staircases, a subject which, \ery fortunately, t had just been studying, and in which I waa well up. Then I devoted myself to modelling, and became looked upon as se proficient that I was chosen to go to Osborne House, the Queen's residence in the Isle of Wight, to superintend some work for Prince Albert, who was a good modeller himself, and very parti--<ra?»r. Many a time I've had a ohai with him, and a 'nine affable gentleman be >vas, too. " After that I started business on my «wn account, and did fairly well, until having made a little money, nothing would do for me but that I mu3t come out to Australia, and make my fortune ac gold digging, about which all England was mad at the time. " I never shall forget my first night i» Melbourne in 1853. It was a miserably wet and cold night, and I couldn't get accommodation high or low, that is, at any respectable-look-ing hotel, and as I had »ver twe hundred pounds on me, I didn't feel inclined to trust myself in any other. You kn«w the stats of Melbourne streets after dark in those days, and I knew it too that if it had been thought I had so much money on me I sheuld moat certainly have been robbed and probably murdered, for the place was infested w"ith ganga of ruffians from the ' other side,' and with all the riff-raff and gaol sweepings of Europe, so you may imagine that I did not feel very easy in my mind. Hewaver, going along Elizabeth-street, I saw over a pawnbroker's door a name that seemed familiar, that of Browning, and in I went. To my joy I found that the worthy pawnbroker was one who had lived near my father's house, and with whom I had had many transactions, in which various chattels, ranging from flat irons to under-linen, figured prominently. Here the obliging pawnbroker took my mosay in pledge, and to a certain extent, myself too, for he allowed me to stop the night in a little back room, where he carefully looked ma in. However, I calmly pocketed the implied suspicion, glad enough to get shelter and safety on any terms. " Lord 1 Lord I What a place Melbourne was in those days to be sure. I sometimes half wonder if, after all, it can be true, if it isn't some kind of a wild dream I'vs had. The mad, mad excitement, the wealtk, tka shameless vice, the crims, the open argiea, the restless, reckless, unceasing Btir and bustle. The red or blue-Bhirtedand bronzed and bearded diggers, driving at full gallop through the streets in open carriages, accompanied by brazen and blowsy female creatures, resplondent in gorgeous silks and velvets, and poisoning the air with profane oaths, and drunken obscenity. The magnificent stores and shops, cheek-by-jowl with ramshaokle shanties, the crowded bars, the noisy uight auctions, the rush to acquire wealth, and the greater rush to squander it. All this stamped Melbourne, the mushroom Melbourne, as a place whose like had never been sesn before, and will, in all probability, m&ver bo seen again. " ' I did not remain long in the metropolis, for, although the very day after I kad landed, I had an offer of no less than four pounds a day to work at my trade— l had not come half way round the world to be a maohanie— besides which I had made one of a party of five of the ship's passengers to try our lortunes on the gold fields. "We therefore bought a dray and herse, tents, stores, and other diggers' necessities, i and started away for the long, dreary journey to Ballarat, where, however, as wa were not very lucky, we did not stay loag, being incited to go further afield by the oonstants reports ®f rich finds, most of them without foundatioa, to the westward. "So to the westward, or rather to the north-westward we started, having no partisnlar place in view, but with the intention of moving onward, prospecting from time t« time as we thought advisable. At first we were very unlucky, on account, in all probability, of not understanding our business, at we were all new chums. " But after a couple of months apsnt hare and there, the fiokle goddeas smiled «» us. "It was in this way. We had canape! shortly before sundown one evening, rigged the tent, made up a fire, had our supper, and turned in for the night, having tied up our horse to a small gum bush, there being no large trees reasonably near. It was fine, but cloudy, when we turned in, but at about midnight the wind changed, and brought up a terrible storm of rain, with thunder and lightning. It was one of thos* sudden tempests that occasionally occur in the Australian bush, and the rain, while it lasted, was about the heaviest I ever knew. However, we had trenohed round our tent, and lay snug and warm enough until morning, when, it being my turn to make up tha fire, I rose, dis«oaa»lately enough, at daybreak. The iky waa dull and gloomy enough and although the worst of the rain was over, there was still a nasty drizzle falling. " The first thing I saw on leaving the tent was that our horse had got away during tka night, and this was not an event calculated *o improve one's temper. From what I could see as well as I could make out in the half light, he had, probably, half frightened by the lightning, dragged the bush up by fche root*, and made for the distant timber. After a considerable expenditure of patience,ingenaity, and grumbling, I contrived, by chopping up an entire porter case and a spare candl* box, to get a fire alight, and setting on the billy went back to the root hole to see by tha hoof marks which way the horse had strayed. "By this time it waa daylight, and there I saw a sight which, for the moment, eel my blood running cold, for there in the hole I saw, as thick as plums in a pudding, saining out from the wet soil, nuggets and specks of the precious ore we had come so far to aaek. At first I could not believe it. It seemed too good to be true. Yet there it was sure enough. Nuggets large, and nuggets small, from the size of a pinhead to that of a bean, a few larger than that. "I said nothing, but knelt down in th« sodden earth, and in half as hour had gatkered up a pannikin full from this undoubted ' jeweller's shop.' Then, and not till than, did I awake my mates. They were aroas afcd i cold, and didn't seem much inclined to move, i c I'll wake you up presently, my lads, «r I'm much mistaken,' tkought I. "•ls it raining yet ? ' aaid one* " ' Yes.' " ' Ah i billy boiling ? ' said another. " < Yes, and the horse go(j away during the night.' " ' Confound tha horse and the rain too.' " • Don't confound either the horse or the raiia, for both haye done for us what wa couldn't do for ourselves — look here,' and with that I showed them the treasure I had picked op. " Jaok Payne jumped up with a bound that nearly brought the wet tent down about our ears, and the others did not wait long after him. "We had struck & patch, and no mistake, for we could find gold, more or less, in every part of the fiat where we tried for it. ' ••Yon may imagine we lost not no time in marking off our ground, and I was sent down to Ballarat to secure it, and to obtain store*. <\.''\' (Q<fimtynF> on Ba^P^cw"^v-'' a V - s'*5 '*

You may also imagine that we were not long without company, for the news went abroad by some mysterous and unaccountable telegraphy like wildfire, andjin leas than a week there were five thousand diggers on the field, and a township, with stores, hotels, and all the other appurtenances of a gold field's township had sprung up in the wilderness. " That waB the start of the Fiery Creek diggings. 11 The usual state of things followed. Bowdyism, blasphemy, drunkenness, continual fights, formed the staple of the devil's game carried on from morning to night. I candidly believe that the worst lot of thieves, loafers, and general riff-raff that was ever Been on any diggings was that assembled at the start of Fiery Creek. Of course there were plenty of quiet, respectable^ hardworking men there too, and they, with the aid of the police, and of public opinion (for there was such a thing as public opinion even there) kept, at least, a semblance of order, although the roughs tried very hard to rule with the right of might. , "There was one great slab-sided, powerful fellow, a Yankee, who with his mate, & hulking brute from the Sydney side, was the terror of the camp. He was an unmitigated bully and a thief to boot, as after events showed, and was never so happy as when he was picking a quarrel with seme inoffensive man who was not his match in strength or brutality. He tried it on with me once ; but I hadn't sparred in the rin& &<■ nine years old for nothing aau before he well knew where L« was, he was on his back in the creek with a gashed cheek, a split nose, and two broken ribs Hiß mate didn't make any remarks, but got him away to their tent very quietly. He was laid up for three weeks, and it was wonderful how meek he was after that. " Well, we remained on the creek four months altogether, and we did exceedingly well. In fact, we were all rich men. Most of our gold we had sent away by the esoorfc, but at last the wandering fit seized us, and we determined to start for Melbourne, and see a little life. Wo had with us something like five hundred ounces of gold, and we knew perfectly well how dangerous it would be to carry it with us, and yet we wanted, if we could, to save the escort duty. And now came one of the most curious things I ever heard or knew of, a thing which, if I didn't know to be true, I could hardly believe. Jack Payne, who was a carpenter by trade, took the box off the dray, and on the top of the axle-bed or part of the shaft under the box, hang me if he didn't cut a groove, and in it placed the gold wrapped up in a ohamois leather like a sausage, dosing up the hole with a piece of wood so cleverly out as not to allow the joint to be seen. The wheels were then taken off 'for a blind,' as he said, and oiled, and the entire affair bolted together again. " Clever, wasn't it ? Oh, yes, wonderfully clever 1 But you shall hear. We left Fiery Creek, and being a strongish party, and, moreover, being known to be well armed, were never molested, although hardly a day passed without small parties, or solitary travellers, being stuck up, and robbed or maltreated. In due course we got to the Keilor Plains, and camped one night on the Toolern Creek. We had finished tea, and were sitting yarning round the fire, when we were aware of two men coming towards us. " ' Good evening, mates," said one of them. '" Good evening.' " 'Going up or down.' " ' Just come down, and bound for Melbourne,' said I. ii i We've just made a start from Melbourne,' Said the new comer, ' and intended to camp on this creek, but the wheel of our dray broke down half a mile down the road, and seeing your fire, we came to see who you were. We've left our mates with the dray.' " ' Broke down are you, that's a pity.' " ' Well yes, it is a pity. We shall have to take the wheel back over four miles, and it's the loss of time we're thinking about.' " ' We've got a nice little dray here,' I said 'we don't particularly want it ; and we might make a deal if you like, for time is no particular object to us.' " Well the long and short of it was that we did make a make a deal the next day. We exchanged drays, we receiving tweDty pounds to boot and taking the broken dray ; not a bad bargain we thought, althought ours was a better one though not so big as theirs had ever been. " In the course of conversation they told us that they were not bound for any particular place, and asked us if we could lay them on to a good spot, and we informed them where we had just come from, that we had done well, and advised them to try it, and t© take a particular direction if they could not find a spot on the flat itself. And so we parted, they towards Ballarat, we to Melbourne. " Howl never was particularly enamoured of digging life, and as I had determined to remain in Melbourne, and had a pretty round sum of money, I cast about me, and at last determined to become a boniface. I found a goed hotel in the market, situated opposite the wharf , and there I went into business. It wa& not what you'd call a first class house, my principal customers being sailors and lumpers, and diggers arriving by the steamers ; still it paid, and paid well. " In due course, and when they had had their spin, my four mates came to me, having lodged a certain amount of their money in my hands, for a general squaring up, as they thought of making a fresh start. " ' I wonder how those chaps are doing we sold our dray to ? ' I said, in the course of general conversation. ' ' • Dray ! ' exclaimed Jack Payne, jumping up, and his face turning white as a sheet. • Oh Lord ! ' " ' What's the matter, 1 said we surprised. " ' Matter,' he gasped, • why don't you remember the five hundred ounces we hid in the axle bed.' "We stared at one another as if we had collectively seen a ghost. Strange, almost incredible to relate, not one of us had ever thought about it until that instant. How we could possibly have forgotton it, I know not, but we had. There was no mistake about that. It wal gone, five hundred ounces, say two thousand pounds in round numbers, four hundred pounds a man, and all we had got was twenty pounds, and a dray with a patched wheel. Kecr imination was out of the question , because we were all equally to blame. There was no use in crying over spilled milk ; so with a regretful sigh, we wiped it off the slate " And now, knowing as you do, the state of Victoria at that time, comes the still more incredible part of the story. My four mates started upßendigo way, I preferring to remain in Melbourne, but being a sleeping partner in the concern. I didn't see them again for nearly twelve months, and when I did they staggered me a little. They drove down in the evening one day, and didn't say much that night about what they had been doing, although I could not help remarking that they kept chuckling and laughing, as if some great joke were under way. " Next day we were all up early, and Jaok Payne and Bill Thomas asked me to step into the yard and look at the new horse and dray. ii ( \y n y that,' I exolaimed, ' is no new horse, surely. It's old Boxer, isn't it ? ' " The dray, although one dray is so much like another, seemed strangely familiar, and I said, ' Good heavens 1 you don't mean to Bay that you've got the dray back, and the — ' " They broke into a burst of laughter, and Bill Thomas explained in this wise : " ' Of course when we ''left here we'd never no hopes of every seeing either dray or gold again, and had given it up for a bad job. We warn't doing much either, and had been knocking about Bendigo, Kangaroo Flat, Eaglehawk, and soon, till we got tired. So at last we started for the Mclvor. The second day after we got there, I was going to the butcher's for some meat, when, what should I see, tipped up close to a hole, bat a dray that I thought I recognised somehow, although it was smothered up in yellow olay. Says Ito Jack, here, ♦ bothered if I don't think that's the very dray as we want.' • Nonsense,' says he. 'Nonsense or true sense,'; says I, 'I'm jigger'd if I don't believe it lay «»y«

he, • that's easily found out. If you think so, go up and find out who's got it, and where they got it.' So I went up permiscous like, to the hole, and got talkin'. • I think I've met you afore somewhere,' says I, to one of the chaps. ' Was you ever stuck up at Keilor with a broken wheel ? ' The chap he looks at me vory dry, and says he, ' Yes, we was, and we was directed to go to Fiery Creek. We went, too, and done well. I wish I could find the man as told us to go there.' ' Would you know him if you see him,' says I ' I would that, and shout the best in the camp for him, too, if it cost me a fiver.' So I goes down to Jaok, for you know it was Jack and you as done all the talkin', and ar'st him to step up. Soon as ever the bloke seen him, he comes out o' the hole, and blow'd if I didn't think he was agoin' for to kiss him ; he waß so glad, and Lord 1 what a night we did have, to be sure. He wanted us to sling in with their party, and maybe we might, only we had another gameon." Lor', what a game it was. Says Jack, says he, ' I see you've got the same dray we sold you that day.' ' Yes,' says the cove, •we was thinking about gettin' another ; a bigger one if we could, and sellin this. In fact, was goin' into Dendigo to advertise in the papers to-morrow.' ' Why for the matter o' that,' says Jaok. « We've got your old dray, that's bigger than this, and we might make a deal.' So the long and short of it was that the chap seen his mates, and they agreed to ohange bacV again, tvs givlu 1 thoui'w>n pound, on the oargain, and here we are with the old dray back again, and the bag of gold never touched, nor suspected, and if that's not a stroke of good luck, I'm blessed if I know what is.' " You can naturally imagine that I was not a little gratified at the fortunate termination ol what had been a serious loss, for, although we were all pretty well in, myself best of all, still the loss of four hundred pounds a man, through a piece of stupid carelessness, or forgetfulness, was not the sort of thing calculated to make a man feel pleased with himself or his mates, and although we had made up our minds, as perforce we might, to grin and bear it, still we all had felt inexpressibly chagrined at our own stupidity. " That was, I may safelysay, my first and last experience of gold mining, for although I was sleeping partner for years, furnishing expeditions with all necessities and money, and taking a certain risk for my venture, I never went up the country again. In fact I may say that, except one trip as far as Adelaide, when we ran ashore and were wrecked on King's Island, and were saved by the akin of our teeth, I've hardly ever been out of Melbourne since. "Ah well a day ! times have altered since the old days, when money was made freely 1 and spent as freely. In those times a man might be down in the dirt one day, and up in the stirrups next. Now, when he's down he may stop down, it seems to me. " Why, I've seen the time when I've got up thoroughly miserable in the morning because I couldn't find an investment to put my money into, and I've been just aa miserable when I've found the investment and not had the money. All's one for that. Buthere comes the Missis to tell us tea i 3 getting ready, my pipe's out, and I'm getting thirsty with talking, so I propose we finish my yarn, if yarn you may call it, with a taste of this excellent brandy and water, a capital thing after that pudding I can tell you, and a smoke in the garden. By that time the youngsters will have got home, and we can go inside and finish the evening." And so we did.