THE KIMBERLEY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XX, Issue 142, 16 June 1886, Page 4

THE KIMBERLEY.

In Melbourne v Syndicate has been fcraied for the purpose of purchasing Lind iv the Kimbrley district. The capital is .£IOO.OOO. Numerous l>ogas repports re finds at Khnherh y have been circulated at Sydney, and miners arc advised to wait for authcu'ic h'hvs, A young man named Brookman, just returned to Sandhurst from Derby, gives he following information : —He lefo Ro buru in August last, with sheep for Derby. The ro ds were good and the Government wells &ur>plied water. At the Fitzroy river be Waited three months before he go& across the riv -r to Derby, owing to floods. Ho met two two miners, who said wages on the diggings were poor. Two others, however, brought down 280ozs of gold, which they obtained on the surface. The gold was much w&ttrworn. They declared the field was not payable, and eaid it tcok from three weeks to a month (o reach it from Derby. The countiy was bid for traveling, the high gracs being troublebouip. Some of the miners on the ground (HI not take enough provisious, and had to live on snakes and iguanas. Fever, ague, and scurvy prevail on the fiel l?, uud Brookman was i:iid up tor a month. Flour was selling at Derby at £20 per ton, and borsps at £30 each. Four hundred head of caul- 1 had reached to within 150 miles of the digging 0, but eighty died on the road. Captain J. B. D >rke. of the efcenmer Cabiertbun, which arrived last week in Queensland, spates that the steamer Gumbier might get within "five milfs of the landing at Port Derby if piloted up the channel by a local •gran. He also states there is great necessity «b buoy the channel up King Sound, as it is |prrouuded with mud flats. Dr Hedley, of Hamikou, N.S.W., has received intelligence from his brother, now on the Kimberl'y goldfields, stating that he has struck a rich pa'.ch of gold, which has yielded 500^z. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES In a letter received by a resident of Sydney from a friend in Perth, Weaiern Australia, the writer gives some interesting information with reference to his experiences iv that colony. Writing on the 8h May, he says : —" I have been laid up ever since I lauded with an attack of cholera, but have boen getting mnch hotter for the past week ; everybody here gets it at fcho latter end of the summer. The weather has been fearfully hob ; as bad as Sydney at Christmas, This is a very poor country. Is is nil a vast saudy desert, quite barren and des'itute of grass and. water. Everything has to be imported ; consequently they are very dear and inftrior iv quality, added to which there is a Custom duty of 2\ per cent on everything landed in the country, besides extortionate rates for freights, wharfage, and carriage, and vex vtious delays wi.h Custom-house aud railway officials. Wages are very low for working nine and ten hours a day. Mechanics average about Is an hour, and laborers just what; they can get. Everything and everybody is overtaxed, >nd the people have no voice in the govirnment of tho cmntry. The bsst land hns all be fn grabbed by the Government officials, their friend?, and toadies for the last half century, and town and suburban land is dearer th-.n iv Sydney; in fact, they don't know how to open their mouths wide enough. The f irmers produce very little, and have been dragging oub a miserable existence by the sale of eandalwood, which is the main sfr>y and principal export of the country. Things are just about to change for the better, and it is anticipated i hat the country will make ali;tle headway for the next four or five years. The goldfields in the Kimberley district, in the North, are now an cst-tblfched fact, and altogether it is supposed about 10,0000z3 or 12,0000zs have been brought into Derby. King's Sound seems to be the f-.vorite port for the diggings, which are situate on the Btvire River, a tributary of the OrJ flowiag iato Cambridge Gulf. One of the prospectrrs i 3 stopping at the pame place here with me. The party went up last September with thirty-three packJiorses lentf by the Government. They went by way of Cambridge Gulf aud came down via Derby. He says the route via Derby is the best, the distance being 400 miles. They all had to leave, as they had consumed all their tucker, and there was no water to be had for washing the dirt. The country is something like Northern Queensland, and the style of work the same—' gully-raking.' The ground is shallow —from nothing to three or four feet — the bottom open slate. He only had about 12oz for six months' trip, but only about a week's real work at digging. He says it is no good goiug up again yet until just before the wet season sets in, as nobody can work without water. The beds of the rivers and creeks are all dry. There is no timber about the diggings. The horses managed to keep in good condition by feeding on spinifex and coarse grass growing on the edges of the gullies and creeks. The gold extends over a large area of country, and will not be worked out for a year or two, unless the Chinamen are allowed to flock in, when it will be all up with it. Parties going there will have to take supplies enough to last at least six months if they intend to give it a fair trial. The place will never do for poor men until a practicable road for drays is discovered, and then the cartage will be very high and provisions very dear, with a good chance of catching the fever thrown in. lam not going there. The people will not move out of the old groove; but strangers are flocking in from the other colonies, chiefly from Adelaide, and immigrants are to be poured into the country after the Sydney style, so the old hands will soon be in the minority, but they will ' boss ' the place, as they have all the lands in their possession. I think there is a chance of gold being found much nearer Perth than Kimberley. Steamers leave here for Derby fortnightly, Bteerage £10, and £8 from Melbourne to Perth. It would cost about £20 or more from Sydney round by this route. The prospectors were six weeks coming from the diggings to Derby, King's Sound. The Government are going to erect a telegraph line to Derby, so we will have a chance to hear a little news from the goldfields about the time they are werked out. The people here don't trouble much about the diggings. Every boat takes about 30 or so for Derby, but they are chiefly naw arrivals from the other colonies. Remember me to all the boys, and tell none to come here unless there is good gold struck nearer the coast." Seldom (observes the London Chronicle') have scenes more disgraceful and discreditable to our common humanity been witnessed in an English Court of Justice than those which have taken place in the Old Bailey during the trial of Mrs Bartlett, charged with the murder of her husband. It is an unwholesome and degrading spectacle to see the eagerness with which females of respectable appearance flock to the courts to hear the conduct of a case the evidence in which is expected to be of a questionable character. It would not be extreme to say that the greater the certainty of abominable details, the more keen becomes the desire (o be present. The FCathing rebuke administered by Mr Justice Wills to the women thronging his court was amply justified, not merely on account of their presence, but, worse still, of their unseemly behaviour. The determination of some was shown by the fact that they brought fancy work, in the idle performance of which they busied themselves a portion of the day, while others talked and laughed in a manner at variance with the solemnity of the occasion. It is a terrible scandal to find women voluntarily listening day after day to details which to professional men are admittedly revoUing and disgusting. Bad, however, as this conduct appears, the behaviour of the women while waiting for the verdict seems to mark an even lower stage in the downward process of degradation and demoralisation. As the accused sat pale, anxious, and careworn in the dock the cold-hearted sisterhood crowded to and pressed their faces against the class panel to satisfy a rude and morbid curiosity in watching the agonised features of the poor woman whose doom was then trembling in the balance. This bo disgusted the attendant officials that they properly removed her out of the way of the brutal gaze and still more brutal criticisms of the vulgar crowd. A scene like this is an outrage upon the of an tribunal.

At a lecture delivered in Dunedin the other day on Western Australia, Mr J. 0. Bnrman, who for many years has been a resident there, gave a description of the country. He said, in reference to Kimberley, that there was do water to be obtained in the summer time; and therefore it was impossible for mining operations to be carried on except during the rainy season, which lasted three or four months. He had himself obtained gold about 250 miles from Kimberley at a place called Eoebourne, a Government township, containing at the present time about 100 inhabitants. He thought there was as much gold to he got within a short distance of that place as Kimberley, and indeed that gold was plentiful over a large extent of country in that region. He was also of opinion that one of the richest diamond fields in the world would some day be discovered within a radius of a hundred miles from Roebourne. He had picked up what he believed to be very large diamonds there, and also gold. In referring to the natives, he said they were cannibals and that they were very treacherous ; so much so that he recommended that no one should ever allow a native to get behind him, as tbere was a possibility in that event of one losing one's life. He mentioned that new comersj a the region of which he had been speaking suffered greatly from " sindy blight," and that poisonous snakes, scorpions, and fleas were very prevalent. While there he wore no clothes, except a shirt in the daytime. The climate was very hot, and life and property were often in imminent danger owing to whirlwinds. On one occasion he had known a whirlwind to sweep away a township. At a late meeting of the Auckland Board of Education a letter was received from a settler who complained that in his district educational matters are generally "fixed up" by two committeemen at a public-house, while the nomadic gumdiggera living in tents, here to-day and away to morrow, figure as " householders " in electing the School Committee. One applicant for the post of school teacher, who be-sprinkled his note with capital letters as if from a pepper castor, assured those concerned of his " interest " in the school. On coming to this latter (says the Herald) the Board lost all interest in his appointment. A young lady, applying for the school,|forwarded her " testamonials." The chairman could understand "spelling ' taters' with a p," but he stuck up at spelling " testimonials" in the above fashion. Mr Cooper gallantly came to the rescue of the damsel, and remarked that bad spelling was not always a sign of lack of ability. He had seen communications from some of the University professors which showed that these gentlemen were occasionrather weak in