WILD DAYS OF GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21067, 29 December 1931, Page 5

WILD DAYS OF GOLD.

BANKER'S EXPERIENCES. JOURNEY WITH £30,000. To be placed in charge of gold to the value of £30,000 on a long coach and rail, journey is an experience which few persons in New Zealand can claim. It is only one, however, picked at random from the hfo of Mr. A. 11. 0. Orr, manager of the branch of ilie Bank of New Zealand, at Sydenham, Christ - churc.li, who retires at the end of the vear. Fortv years ago Mr. Orr entered tho hank service, at Naseby when tho Chinese on the diggings outnumbered the white population. "Tho wild old days ' is how ho describes them. "Everything was free and easy and any fun we had we made ourselves. There was plenty." In the three years in which Mr. Orr was stationed at Naseby bo puked up a smattering of the. Chinese language and even to-day he call conduct, :i rather one-sided conversation with his laundry man. lTc has seen a wash of (rvcr £IOOO as the result of three to four months' work by a, party of Chinese. " 1 here is still gold to be. had there," he said. "I havo gone out myself on a Saturday afternoon and panned as much as 3s with a miniature cradle. "One of my first experiences on joining the hank," said Mr. Orr, in an interview last week, "was to snick a small piece from the ear oi mv senior, by firing off tho bank revolver. I havo been very careful with firearms ever since. I knew nothing about, revolvers at the time and as the hammer was down 1 deliberately pulled the trigger, although 1 had been warned to be careful.

t was placed in charge of £30,000 worth of gold from three banks at Nasoby and St. Pat bans to be taken by coach and train to Uunedin. There were several 'wags' in the coach and in the train who kept remarking on the gold 1 was guarding and what would happen to it. On the coach if played so much on my nerves that I warned two men that I had power to shoot, and would do so on any provocation. "The two men sat opposite to me in the train and referred to what, would happen in the tunnels. This played on my nerves more. While going through the tunnels the two men kept up a continuous conversation—as they afterwards explained to let mo know they wore still there and had no designs on the gold, thinking .1 might shoot at the first sounds of movement. One. of the men was Mr. W. Carneross, now Sir Walter (,'arneross, Speaker of the Legislative Council.

"Opium smoking was quite legal then and besides the Chinese on the goldfields 1 have seen low class Europeans at it. There were Chinese shops in the township and smoking went on at all of them."'

From Nascby Mr. Orr was transferred to West port, where ho was stationed for ton years. His principal job there was gold smelting. Westport was notable at this time for the CO or 80 beachcombers who made their homes on the beach and earned a very meagre living on their claims. A number of them had been wealthy miners who had squandered every penny. Mr. Orr was then transferred to Christchurch, where he remained for six years. After that he went: to Rungiora for three years and a-half, to Oxford for nine vears and, in 1922. to Sydenham, where he has remained since.

"A great deal of the detailed work in the banks has been dispensed with," Mr. Orr said, ''while salaries and pensions have increased out of all knowledge. When T started as a junior T received £SO and paid out £65 for board. The bank was then 60 miles off the railway and for ii year 1 did not see a train. It was nothing for a party to drive 60 miles to see an important football match."