HOW A MINE IS SALTED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2490, 4 December 1901, Page 29

HOW A MINE IS SALTED.

A GOLDEN PILL AND A SNEEZING FIT

The disclosures made in a recent case heard at Brisbane of the modus operandi of the minewaiter are amusing and at the same time instructive. A man named John Franklin Munro Hall was indicted at the Criminal Court on a charge of false pretences by means of forged telegrams, and in the course of the evidence the following letter, which had been found in the prisoner's safe, was read, being addressed from the " Camp," Milkman's Plat, Maytown, on October 20, 1900, to " My Dear Frank," and signed " Tom." After introductory remarks it stated: — . " I have been pestered with visitors all watching "the progress of work, and my presence both ' at drill and shifts was absolutely necessary constantly. Fpr instance, in the shaft out of ,-which the large quantity of gold was obtained — "as you know it was compulsory that the ground * should cave in,' bo that no one could get into this after the gold was discovered— this made it imperative that I should work it myself and after the small sets of timber had been put 'ti over night (that is just before going back to camp) I made a remark to the men working jthat the ground was running and I was afraid jthe ground would cave in, and so it did, because I went down in the "middle of the night and knocked out all the props, and then down came all the loose ground and it did look t»' .■beautiful mess the next morning — my man said it was not safe to work in. This was all I ' svideace^ tton'fc jqu see— -be washed.

the gold and saw the whole lot— that has happened in each case. I had to arrange salting, and do it carefully, but it has been don^ and done well. • I can quite understand youi anxir.<,y, but the moves had to be made with diplomacy so that we were fully protected. Mind, old. man, the property is a payable one outsido aay salting, but the actual returns would uoi. have moved the market. I thought 't best to send down the gold ' obtained ' from No. " shait. It left to-day, and is of a very uniform quality, and will take the directors' eyes — particularly friend Stewart s. . . . I shall make the reports and results so good that sven you will not have a fault to find. . . Now, to-day [ received the biggest shock of all. Spider's brother came to the property. I was working on the wash, and certainly in a of a fix I was pleased to see him, and invited him to ■*H:o out a dish, and go up to the camp an" wash it. This he did. In the meantime 7 made a clay pill, put in about half * giaui of gold, and put it in my mouth. WUsn ne Landed me the dish I promptly had a sneezing fit, and the pill accidentally fell into the dish, and you ought to have seen his face when he washed it. He behaved like a schoolboy, shook hands with me, and generally played the fool. I invited him to take another dish, but he said he was more tkan satisfied — had he not broken the ground and washed the stuff himself? 1 impressed upon him the necessity of keeping it quiet, with a result that he promptly rode into town, wired his brothers, Powtes and Harte, and told everyone in town, and got them into a fever. The t operator gave me the tip about wires having gone, but, by Jove, I never want another sweet hour like that one agftir. From this yon will gather thr.t I am pulling the ropes correctly." Hull received two years' imprisonment, the judge remarking that he had never known a case in which so much artfulness had been shown by anyone to obtain possession of ths property of another man by fraud.