THE PORT DARWIN RUSH.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1701, 16 January 1874, Page 2

THE PORT DARWIN RUSH.

[MELBOURNE DAILY TELEGRAPH.] ' The adventurous spirits who have gone out into the wilderness commonly known as the Northern Territory are likely to return wiser and poorer men. There is a concurrence of testimony amoug the witnesses who are sending back written evidence of the unsatisfactory nature of their experiences which is more than sufficient to counteract the brief but flourishing telegrams that occasionally appear in the" South Australian papers. A few days since we published .'■ some particulars furnished' per post to an Adelaide contemporary, and '. to-day ' • we " give an extract from another aciiount. forwarded to the Sydmy Empire.^ The 'wanderers from Victoria are also occasionally to be heard of, the burden of their epistles being very similar to the lamentations that appear in the other colonies, and the account from Palmerston may be,' taken as a air sample of all the: others. . It will be noticed that the writer .stigmatises the rush to Port. Darwin as <( a complete swindle from first to last," and he cautions the public against placing any faith in the telegrams sent from 'that side of the continent. This tallies exactly with the news and opinions recently sent to Adelaide, and though the unfavorable accounts have been challenged at Port Darwin, it is singular that there have been no reliable contradictions of them'-sent to the Press. It has, been stated that the bad accounts have all been ■ concocted by men who never went to the mining districts, but remained in Palmerston and wrote their dismal stories as excuses for their idleness or inclination to loaf about the township, instead of going to work on the gold-fields. , There have beeu a number of men, however, who have gone out to prove the country, and none of them have had anything good.. to say about it, and if there were any substantial contradictions to ' be given to the statements of the dissatisfied division of the Port Darwin miners, they would no doabt- have found their way into print long since. The fact appears to be that our Adelaide cousins got. smitten with a mining mania, and as they'had no available field of their own for operating in, and were afraid to trust their money in Victorian ventures, the promoters of Port Darwin companies ■ 'came to their rescue. Distance lent enchantment to the speculations, and shares in some of the Northern Territories ventures rose in the market with a rapidity equalto what, at one time, characterised the advance in Hustler's Reef or /i Garden Gully stocks. Fortunately the rush to Port Darwin has. not been of the Port Curtis or Charters Towers? description, and there is hot as yet any demand made for Government assistance in the shape of steamers to bring the runaways. back. It is not impossible nor improbable, how* ever, that the phase of the Northern Territory gold-fields exodus may yet come to pass, for if the '• great many who are now there/ trying to get away," have many additions to their numbers^ I .there will soon be a substitution of destitution for disgust, the latter being the present prevailing feeling respecting the place by those who are 1 unfortunate enough to be there. It is not likely, however, that there will be many more induced to go to a place where there: is "no facility for prospecting," and where not ja'speck of gold can be seen in the reef." This is the last account tc. hard, and it testifies to the fact that Adelaide Verandah men can make money where Melbourne ones would starve. There is propably not promoting skill enough in this Colony to float such Cl complete swindles" as the Port Darwin companies are 1 paid to be ; but the mining sharks to f Adelaide found plenty of victims to prey ."upon. The latter, however, have not 1 been" fleeced to any very great extent, and the experience they . have obtained may not prove dear at the prioe. ' * ' :