PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2287, 4 March 1912, Page 7

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Information dearly bought. A certain African Gold Mine Company was about to shut down its mill, and its £1 shares were to be bought at about 2/6 each. I Six months before this I had nurs- j rd an old Australian shaft sinker during his last illness—-typhoid—and out of gratitude, and as the only means he had of rewarding me, he j told me that he had once contracted 1 to put down a shaft on a certain I property until he struck the reef. At ’ between forty and fifty feet he struck j a deposit which panned marvellously well, but as he was getting a good , price per foot, and the ground was soft enough to pick out without blasting, he, fearing to lose his contract, quickly timbered up the strike, and went on with the job as if nothing had happened. At about 150 feet having struck nothing, he was stopped and the shaft covered over. I considered his story the result of , delirium, and thought no more of it j until I saw the report of the bad ' state of affairs at the mine. Being 1 hard up at the time, I ventured on 1 an action which I should not have taken had I been in funds. I made an appointment with the Directors of the Mining Company, and asked them what ithey would pay me for information which might make a substantial j improvement in the output of the ; mine, and in the end I received a | guarantee in writing that they would i pay me £IOO for such information, j Out to the mine we drove, where I j quickly located the shaft as the only j circular one on the mine, and, together with the manager, I stripped the timbering, and sure enough found what was evidently a blanket reef. J Amid considerable excitement we took samples and panned them on the spot, the results being so good that we adjourned at once to the town office, where I received my cheque. About a year after I returned to Johannesburg, and, meeting the Managing Director, 1 asked him how the new reef had turned out. "'Reef be hanged I” said he wrathfully, '“lt was only a pocket, and we did not get enough gold out of it to pay for your cheque." A FOOL AND HIS MONEY. I am not a gambler. I hate cards, but nevertheless when I was shown a few years ago what I thought was a clever system of roulette play, I, like a fool, studied the watter, with the result that I took the boat for a well-known gambling resort some two months afterwards, with £2OO in my pocket, my wife having previously made two large inside pockets (so sanguine was I) in which to place the enormous winnings ! On my arrival I found that I had to become a member of the club in order to play, to which end one’s name, address, and occupation had to be given, and a matter of three days allowed to elapse before election. On the evening of the third day I crossed the spacious marble hall to the gaming room, where a most brilliant spectacle presented itself. A magnificent room, gorgeous flunkeys, and hundreds of men and women of all nationalities, and, let me add, consisting of as much rascality to the square inch as could, I imagine, be found anywhere. One end of the room was devoted to roulette, and a gesticulating mob, speaking a dozen tongues, grouped around the table, with the greater part of the room given up to baccarat, for which purpose there were several tables to lure the unwary to his destruction. I proceeded to play, standing to win, when a woman seated on the far side of the table quietly appropriated my winnings. I explained to the croupier in my best French, all to no purpose,.* and I walked away disgusted. I then did another foolish thing ; I played baccarat, under the impression that I could adopt the system to this game. I lost, and then I got into such a nervous condition that I was almost afraid to play ! However, I did win and lose., and, having decided to play for higher stakes, lost heavily. I tore up my card of admission and returned a wiser and sadder man. It is so easy to be wise after the event, but I discovered that when man, a bundle of nerves, pits himself against a machine without nerveq the result is that in the long run man must assuredly succumb. One incident is perhaps worthy of note. On the boat among the passengers was a clergyman whom I saw in the gaming room., minus the clerical collar, playing roulette. He told me that on a previous occasion he had made £9O, and was hoping he might again be successful, as having written a w ork on theology he re■quired the needful for its publication! A MIDNIGHT APPARITION. The incident occurred many years ago, but is still green in my memory. I was about seventeen years of age, and was away from home for the first time, spending a holiday at a farmhouse in a remote country district. It was in the Month of August. The day had been glorious, with brilliant sunshine and not a cloud in the sky, but perhaps a trifle too warm for active pursuits. At sundown I was shown to my bedroom. This room, which was a large one, had three small attic windows in the front, and another one which opened like a door, in the far corner. Being very fond of fresh air I left this window wide open. I had not been in bed many minutes before I fell fast asleep. Somewhere about midnight I was awakened by a crash of thunder which shook the house to the very foundations. Sleep being impossible, I lay awake watching the lightning which was so vivid and incessant that the sky was like a quivering sheet of flame. Whilst thus engaged I saw a terrible object approach the little open window. It had boms, two big ejes, and—-

whiskers ! f To say that I was frightened out of my wits would he too mild a "'ay of expressing it ; I was paralysed with fright. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, I was quite unable to utter a sound, and trembled in every limb. At , length I fell into a kind of stupor, from which I was aroused by violent knocking at the door. Still trembling I managed to tumble out of bed, and, in some sort of fashion, 1 dress. I Upon sitting down with the family to breakfast they at once wanted to j know “whatever was the matter with me.’’ In answer I told them of the apparition I had seen during the night, when simultaneously they burst into shrieks of laughter. Upon ; regaining their composure I was given an explanation of the cause of j my fright, which was as follows , The farmhouse had an outbuilding with a sloping roof attached to the I house. This sloping roof reached 1 from the small window down to j within two feet of the ground. Ths i farmer kept at liberty a goat, which, i being desirous of obtaining shelter | from the terrible storm, had mountjed the sloping roof and found bis way up to my bedroom window, which, being wide open, suggested a haven of refuge. A THIEF’S DECOY. The following incident happened to ! me when I was proceeding home one 'night about 11.30 p.m., not so very ! many, years ago. I I had not long parted from my young lady, and was strolling along thinking of her and dreaming dreams I of the future when my attention was ! drawn to a woman of about forty 1 who was coming towards me from | the gate leading to a self-contained house. She was sobbing bitterly, ! and implored me to come to her assistance, as her husband had met with a terrible accident. He had, she explained, been carrying a large packing-case downstairs when he slipped, and it had fallen on top of him. Would X, for heaven’s) sake, come and help her to remove it. I was about to respond, in fact I had entered the avenue approachingv the house, when something about tho appearance of the woman and the place made me inclined to doubt the story she had told me. stories of such tales being, told ■ for ulterior motives came into my head, and decided me not to have anything to do with the business. I thereupon told the woman that she had better call some of the neighbours or get a policeman, as I did not care about entering strange houses at that time of night. I well remember recalling the matter to my folks next morning at breakfast and 1 remarking, more by way of a joke than anything else, that I would , not be in the least surprised to hear that something had happened at that particular house. We thought no more of the matter until two days later, when I was amazed on opening the local evening paper to see an account of a daring robbery which had been committed at the very hours of my little adventure. The victim was a middle-aged gentleman who had been enticed into the place on the same pretence as was attempted in my case. He had been attacked and rendered unconscious and robbed of a gold watch and chain and considerably over four pounds in money, and was found by a policeman in the garden early next morning in a very bad condition. It came out, on investigation, that the house was an empty one and the keys had been obtained on false pretences by a so-called possible tenant. To this day, I congratulate my intuition in telling me to have nothing to do with the affair.