OLD TIMES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume I, Issue 16, 18 March 1890, Page 3

OLD TIMES.

(Reefton Guardian.) Once more visions of old times are aroused in the mind of the digger, and he sees again the glorious pros pects of the early days, when he followed . the., discovery of gold from rush j’ush/anl colony to colony, and spent his dust without any thought of a future, or that the store would ever decrease. But bitter experience has taught him different, and he, who so full of energy years ago, would roll up his swag and hie him to each fresh outbreak of a field, is gone,to the fields of the blest, or an inmate of hospital or other institutioq, or else still in harness 'with 'the "pick ahdi the long-handled-shovel} .anyyay his, circumstances will notiallbw')iiin ! to take the why/ where all diggers are now .bent, that is to the De 'Grey” fiver in Western Australia. This colony has been looked at with hopeful eyes by J tile“miner foryears, and now that a well authenticated find of both an alluvial and reefing field has been made, there is ©.regular stampede from other fields to the new El Dorado. When the new field’s history is written, hoW‘ ihahy will have* found 1 death be-* neath that scorching sun, and the depdsit of liquid called water ? How many will break up their houses with exaltation at their future goldeh prospects only to meet ruin and despair there ? -And how many will return or outlive the first mad rusty with a superabundance, of the precious metal and a future rendered easy by it# possession ? But never venture never win,” and no, admonition, no matter how pertinent or lugubrious, will keep away the enterprising spirit that bums in the breast of the relics of the past, and the children of those who first trod the solitudes in search of fame and fortune at the goldfields.