VOICE FROM THE PAST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21976, 10 June 1933, Page 12

VOICE FROM THE PAST

GLORY THAT WAS “WETHERSTON” VIVID DREAMS OF YESTERDAY WHAT OF THIS MODERN WORLD? Frank Moyle, Cornishmau and colonial, miner and gentleman of fortune, carpenter and undertaker, father of a family with a host of grandchildren, 94 years of age and the last of the “ Sixty-oners,’ the oldest living gold miner in New Zealand, veteran of a dozen gold rushes, with a special affection for Wetherstoncs and a definite impatience with a day and generation which he professes neither to know nor understand. ' In a small room of a small vhare on the outskirts of Lawrence he was found by a Daily, Times reporter, living alone in virtual blindness, but in his own statement of his case “ as happy as can be.” Not even the 94 winters of half a dozen climates that have passed over his still well-thatched head could prevent him from grasping shovel and pan once more if his eyesight would allow him to work. “ X could show them yet how and where to' get gold; still sleep with the best of them on Gentle Annie, cross) the Old Man Range and find the Two Sisters. I’m as fit as fit and don’t feel a bit old.” And then he remembered —those eyes

that would not let him work, and that world which, puzzle as he might, he could not understand. What good to strive while the world passed him by? Only can he rest and look out on a world whose whims and fancies he cannot fathom, whose customs and manners he cannot brook, whose end he cannot foresee. He frankly admitted his bewilderment and seemed far more anxious to discuss this strange new world than the familiar old, that world of another day which was represented by the ghosts of his long-dead friends for a “ five minutes talk with anyone of whom he would give a five pound note.” But they would not like this world either, a place quite incapable of those swift and mighty changes that came through the sudden awakening of passion at the thought of gold, that fever and fret which impelled the men of his day to swim rivers, climb mountains and cross seas in search of yellow, glittering gold. For him and for them there are too few mischances latent in the order of modern life. The surface of to-day’s accustomed ways, hardened by the traffic of half a century’s engines and machines, will never again _ flow molten through the heat of enthusiastic fire. For him the earth has lost its heart, has changed monstrously the shape and character of its ways and' settled down to a humdrum mechanical expansion which likes him not. It was in Cornwall that he first learnt the rudiments of the calling which he followed so assiduously in Australia and New Zealand, and at the age of eight his father saw to it that he knew the timbering of a mine and the elements of operation, and in these early studies was born the lust which in his own words made him a Wandering Jew all his life. Still a callow youth in his teens he found his way to the Australian diggings, where he joined in . the frantic search for the glittering metal. It was while in Melbourne that he heard of the Otago strikes, and, with a few companions, set out on the never-ending quest. He arrived in Otago at Christmas time, 1861, just in time to become a “ sixty-oner,” and he recalls bow he was carried ashore from the Eureka on the back of a Maori woman at Pelichet Bay. The Wetherston field called him, and he soon found himself, one of thousands engaged on the same feverish hunt. “ Wetherstones ” was a misnomer, he stated. The place was named after Wetherston, and, if justice were done to old memories, the name would still be the same. But this modern world, it took too many liberties . altogether. Still, it knew not the complete little world of Wetherston in that, far off day—the homiest diggings he ever saw in all his wanderings. And now, when life tried to bear him down beneath its crushing load he could look back on gay and carefree times with a good-natured, sociable, happy-go-lucky throng, who lived in perfect amity, made their money and lost it, made more and lost that, and then wandered away to “ fresh fields and pastures new.” Of course there were lights j and quarrels, thieves and claim-jumpers, rogues and gamblers, but they had their place and never overstepped the mark. They were necessary evils of a picturesque day and widely tolerated. Those were days when men knew what work was, and still loved to work, when the hours of daylight were spent in strenuous toil and the succeeding darkness brought amusement and then sleep. All a woman required was an addition to the tent and she was prepared to throw in her lot with a man for life, in marked contrast to the husband-seeker of to-day, who wanted £OOO or £7OO and every convenience and luxury before she embarked on the matrimonial sea. How good it would be to-day to swagger down Little Burke street, Willis street, Sturt street, Broadway, and all those thorough-, fares which made up the world of Wetherston, to drink in the Sportsman’s Arras, and, tiring of its brew, turn one’s steps to the Washington, the White Star, or the Eureka, and then to bed to make ready for the next day’s toil.

“Ah, yes,” he sighed, “ We'therston was the best of them all. Good friends, good gold and hard work —all these were good. All these are what I think about as I lie here all day, and these are things I would like to talk about for just five minutes with those that have left me behind.” His picture of Wctherston seemed to fill the little hut, a vivid and unforgettable dream of the past for him, a skeleton of faded glory for one who had just left the scene, tenanted now by modern machinery and only The melancholy ghosts of dead renown. Whispering faint echoes-of the world’s applause. But though his heart was left in Wctherston. Mr Moyle saw many and many a gold rush. He fossicked as a boy at Forest Creek and Castlemaine in Australia in 1853, joined in the wild search at Bendigo, scooped up gold with a spoon and a pannikin at Tarrangower,

and shared the hard toil of Daisy Hill under Australian suns. He found himself at Nokomai in 1862, at Hindon in 1863. at the old P.Q. at Waipori in 1870, and in the same year he made his 10s a week and finally about £5 a week at Waitahuna, He worked solo and in company, in the hills and in the valleys, and learned the innumerable tricks of a trade that seemed, more than any other, to attract tricksters to it. He paid for his experience with “ Yankee Dans,” those astute gentlemen who “ salted ” a wash just next to one’s own fruitful claim, and then suggested a partnership which would work one’s own claim first and then go on to his. And then just as one's claim was beginning to “ peter ” out after providing £8 to £lO a week for oneself and the newcomer, he would decide that he had made enough money, and, selling out, set off in search of other “ mugs ” He came to know the man with the hard luck talc, the gambler with the “ slick fingers,” and the unending variety of gold rush hangers-on. They were, like the urge for gold, always with him, and although they found their way to Wethcrston, that little corner of the province remained always for him the best diggings of them all. And now they are dead. Wethcrston is dead. Lawrence is dead. Like all gold rush settlements they died when the gold ceased to come to the surface, and now there is nothing, only a world whose hurry and bustle he does not like, whoso people are not as their fathers were, whose evils are many and whose future is dark. “11l fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,” he mutters, and wonders what will come of everything. Only one thing he knows—that the past is dead, that all his friends are dead, and that blindness is rendering useless a body which could yet toil and strive with the best of them in spite of 94 years.