MORE MEMORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 21

MORE MEMORIES.

"CREMORNE GARDENS." THE ROARING DATS OF GOLD. A CABBY'S MISTAKE. (By NEVILLE FORDER.) The gardens referred to in my last batch of memories as being closed down after the tragic end of one of the pleas-ure-seekers were later re-opened by Joe Boulter, a hard-hitting, resourceful fellow, who was liked by everybody. It was during the first roaring days of the Thames goldfield and a very crude sort of carnival sufficed to satisfy and gratify the rovers, so long as there was plenty of liquor attached to it, and Bqulter's gardens became very popular. Auckland was full of decrepit old fourwheeled two-horse cabs, probably bought cheap yi Australia and imported as a speculation, and these were the principal means by which the holiday-makers reached the gardens, which were three miles from the "Greyhound Corner," said Greyhound being the hotel at the stables of which the Cobb and Co. coaches used to start and terminate their adventurous trip up the Waikato as far as Mercer then known as Point Russell; the change of name being a compliment and memorial to Captain Mercer, who was killed at the storming of Rangiriri pa, adjacent.

To get back to Cremorne and those cabs, I tel: t:ie actual truth when I assert that I have seen as many as five of them, broken down and abandoned, m "the cold grey dawn," as I travelled the rough clay road on my way to Campbell's Paddocks to fetch our cow and father's riding horse. This road '.vas simply a track cut through thick ti tree and worn bare by the Marsden and other wheel traffic of many years. It sloped from Campbell's Corner all the way to the gates of the gardens, and the water running down, year in and year out, had gullied and ridged it till it was little wonder axjes broke and j bottoms fell out of those ancient i carriages. Money flowed like water i among those 'reckless diggers and it was

quite de rigeur, if a load of eight or i ten, and that road, caused a breakdown, 1 for the fares to club together and hand I the driver the price of a new vehicle. Boulter was a nan of resource whom it was hard to corner and he handled those rough and tough mobs with < masterful cleverness. A Diplomatic Bluffer. He ruled by a sort of diplomatic bluff and also by the respect almost generally paid by the ordinary workers to those "put in authority over them," as the prayer-book has it; in those happier days. i'he fights in the road in front of the gates, m the Cremorne days, were even more desperate than those in earlier days, because the contestants were mostly splendid men from the goldfields; perfectly fit, with muscles of steel and faces of brass, hard to cut or even bruise. Mainly these terrific battles were between Irishmen and Cornishinen (Micks and Cousin Jacks, to use the vernacular), and they were, to judge from the remarks of the madly excited partisans of the opposing forces, sort of serial. One gathered a brief synopsis of previous chapters and they usually finished with "to be continued." Of a truth, many of them were, too. Some of the most vicious, sanguinary fights 1 witnessed, many years after, when I had become a man of position and of weight in the sporting world, were begun in the 'sixties and 'seventies on the various goldfields. Got Into Holts. For Instance, a party of us were returning (of course per four-wheeler) from a race meeting at Ellerslie —for the principal race, by the way, Secretary i'ercival had accepted my suggestion of a name, the "Winter Oats Handicap." It was won, I recollect, by poor little George Williams, on a mare called My Dream, and we pulled up at the Junction Hotel for refreshment. Of our party were impish Dave Fox, sporting postman and crack "silver clog" dancer, and a Cornish publican, named Si Coombes, who kept the Forester's Arms, in Albert Street, opposite the Star Hotel. We were standing at the bar when Nat Stafford, a cabman, came in and, seeing Coombes, went straight at him like a dog at its regular rival. Stafford wa.» a raging madman, for he had got a longsought chance at this old enemy of the Thames days; and he made the mistake of getting into "holts" with a professional wrestler in a confined space. Si got a Cumberland body-hold, looked over i Nat's shoulder, saw a fixed bench against

the wall, exerted Lis bull-like strength, backing Nat' a few feet on the sanded floor, looked again, back-heeled the foolish Stafford, and brought him down ■with hi 6 own 15 stone on top of him. The back of Nat's head just reaching the edge of that solid bench. The effect can bp imagined. Stafford's head was cut across as if with a blow from an axe and all the fight was knocked out of hini; in fact he was quite insensible till I and another dragged him out to the pump in the yard and bathed his round-shot "bean" with icy water. When he could sit on that bench, Coombes addressed him: "Thou'rt a dirty dog, Stafford. Thou tried to get me unawares. But I licked thee twice at Thames an" I'll lick thee every time if so's I gets fair plaa." And Stafford cursed and raged, holding his sore head: '"I'll get you yet, Si Coombes. I'll have my senses by tomorrow mornin' an' I'll come round to, your pub and sma;«h you." "Lookee *ere." rumbled Si.'"if you come round to my public on a Sundaa morn, makin' of a disturbance, I woant foight thee, ye dirty dog. I'll just pet the axe and cut thee down and choop thee to bits." It is not on record that Nat Stafford kept his promise, that Sunday or at any other time. Si Coombes was a character, and to hear him tell the story of how he won "championship o't' West Coast," was our pet diversion. Unfortunately no j>en could write it as he told it.