A GOLDFIELD REMINISCENCE

Otago Witness, Issue 3526, 11 October 1921, Page 55

A GOLDFIELD REMINISCENCE

By Geo. M. Massing. But for ways that are dark, and tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar. The above quotation from Bret Harte was on many occasions amusingly exempli lied when the Otago goldfields became overrun by Chinese during the stampede of the European miners for the West Coast rush. The Cararena goldfield, which in the early sixties produced some very rich claims (notably the Pirate, the Homeward Bound, and the Gin and Raspberry, each yielding the lucky shareholders a small fortune), became a happy hunting-ground for the Celestials. About the commencement of the seventies there were about 150 European miners on the field and some 600 Chinamen. The lower part of the township became a Chinatown, with its cookshops, gambling and opium dens, and ail the accessories and smells of Chinese civilisation. In the evenings the four billiard tables were also well patronised by them. Money being plentiful, the township was lively and things fairly humming. Many of the European miners were married, and most of them kept a cow, geese, and fowls. Now, among the Chinese was one fat, sleek, and oily-look-ing customer known as Pig Tung. He lived near the township in an isolated sod hut covered with sack roofing. Alongside his hut was a similar one, displaying a sliding trapdoor in the sod wall. This hut was occupied by a. big trained roster belonging to Pig Tung. For weeks many of the miners’ wives had been losing their hens in a mysterious manner without the slightest clue as to what had become of them. It was subsequently discovered that Pig Tung’s rooster, when let out in the morning, would make direct for the nearest collection of hens, where bv bowing, scraping, and making himself irresistibly agreeable, he would gradually lead them to his own quarters, where the entrance through the trapdoor was enticingly sprinkled with rice. It was a repetition of the old song. “Will you walk into my parlour'/” Having all entered, Pig Tung would smartly unfasten a. string in his own hut, but which suspended the trapdoor in the rooster’s department, and the hens were imprisoned. To kill, dress, and sell the fowls to the Chinese cookshops was his chief occupation, and brought him in a nice little income. After lovingly capturing most of the hens, suspicion at length fell upon that rooster. One day he flew over the sod wall into the only fowl yard that was fenced; but the good lady immediately spotted him, and a dexterous throw of a tomahawk laid him low—a dead bird. The cunning audacity of Pig Tung was, however, exemplified by the fact that he actually, bland and childlike, called upon the lady who despatched the amorous rooster with this question: ‘‘You see him locster? Me lose ’em looster.” Another characteristic incident of ways that are dark happened in this way: In the township were located two banks—the National and the Bank of New South Wales. The former had a resident agent, but the latter was visited once a week bv the popular manager of the Cromwell branch, who used to ride over by wav of the Roaring Meg to purchase gold and transact ordinary business. As the banker used to depart on the day after arrival, the gold-buying was chiefly done in the evening, often till a late hour. Pretty late one evening a Chinaman entered to dispose of a few ounces of gold. The banker put the gold in the blower and ran a magnet through it to pick up anv ironsand it might contain. The gold, being fairly coarse, was easily cleaned, and nut into the large brass-beamed scales on the counter. The weights were in a box on a shelf immediately at the back of the banker, and this caused him to partly 'turn his body to pick the weights out of the box. The banker’s practised eye could tell to within a pennyweight or two what this small parcel of gold ought to weigh ; so, before elevating the scales, he put iu the weights he considered should weigh up the gold in the opposite scale. It did not lift the gold, so he put in a few more pennyweights. Still it did not raise the opposite scale. This puzzled him. He ran the magnet through it again. Then he put in more weights.

Still it would not lit), the gold. He then put in an ounce weight, touched his finger to the elevator, whicn brought the scaies up with a sharp jerk, when 10. on the counter dropped a luino of lead which had been dexterousl' attached by means of gum to the bottom of the scales containing the geld. This lead had, of course, been cleverly and smartly affixed by the Chinaman while thf banker turned to extract the weights out of the box behind him. When the lead dropped on the counter, and the scales containing the gold flew up, the trick immediately dawned upon the banker, who looked the Chinaman square and straight in the face. There was, however, not a movement in the Celestial’s features that would indicate guilt on his part. His countenance was a study, a picture of innocence and serene happiness. The banker, who was a smart, powerful, and resolute man, said nothing. He just put the gold in the safe, walked round the counter, locked the door, and nut the key in his pocket. Then he paid John his money, and, having done so, lie went for that Chinaman, ihe hiding he gave John made him waltz round that bank and yell for his life. His screams brought his countrymen out of the cook-shops, gambling dens, and billiard saloons till fully 100 had assembled outside the bank. Then suddenly the door opened, and a sadder but wiser Celestial shot out amongst liis sympaj thising brethren. i W ith a view of improving and elevating the moral and intellectual nature of the ! Chinese residents on the creek, as well as to supplement a small salary, I started | an adult Chinese evening school in the

principal store, kept by Mr Wang Yen. Only the traders and mining bosses joined the class, which became most popular, and I was treated with every mark of respect by the pupils, who displayed keen interest and remarkable aptitude in acquiring the rudiments of English. Dealing with arithmetical sums was the most difficult problem owing to the habitual use of the ball-frame to which they had always been accustomed. Some very amusing little incidents occurred in this school, where I became known as Mr Ah Sing; and whenever a perplexing problem involving thought was set on the blackboard my leading scholar, Vt ang \en, would quietly slide into the front of the store, whence he would presently reappear, smiling serenely and carrying a fray with a glass of wine and a cigar, which he would courteously place o' l t my table with this observation: ‘Welly good the master.” I also inculcated civics or the principles of British citizenship. My previous two years experience in the' coastal towns of China was of much value to me in conducting the school. W hen the alluvial claims becameworked out the Chinese gradually left the Cardrona, and the school broke up : hut a couple of years subsequently I had the pleasure of receiving a letter from one of mv pupils informing me that, as the eflect of attending the classes, he had secured the appointment of interpreter to the magistrate’s court at Hongkong. Most of my Celestial pupils made sufficient ,money to return to the “Flowery Land,” but whether the subsequent overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty was in a remote way due to my democratic teaching is, of course, an open question. I have, however, most happy recollections of the pleasant evenings" spent with ray Chinese friends.