MINER’S LONELY LIFE

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1934, Page 12

MINER’S LONELY LIFE

HIS 44 YEARS OF SECLUSION EX-NEW-ZEALANDER’S ROMANCE. A recent arrival at Sydney from Western Australia was a lonely, grey-bearded old man who had felt strangely out of place in the big cities he has visited during recent weeks. . t The man is ■ a figure out of Australia's most colourful past, Mr. W. H. (“Maori”) Dawkins, who has been described as one of the greatest gamblers Australia has ever known. He is now 75 years of age, but the years have not dimmed the keen grey-blue of his eyes, but, as it is 44 years since he left the gay life of the cities, he has felt ill at ease. Mr. Dawkins can still recall the Sydney and Melbourne of the past—those early, wild days, when scenes were enacted similar to those pictured in some of those memorable Far West “talkies. In the early nineties there were nights when he watched thousands of pounds pass over the gambling tables of Sydney and Melbourne. For the past 44 years “Maori” Dawkins has lived in a lonely shack in the Black Range, in Western Australia. He found life in the quiet hills not so exciting as the days when

his fortune depended on the fall of a card, but to him it was not less enjoyable, and his continual search for gold ■always added zest to his lonely existence. Dawkin’s best find was many years ago, when he discovered a gold nugget the size of a man’s Hand. It weighed 33 oz., and he sold it to the Western Australian Government for £5 an ounce. The old miner had not set foot in a modem city until he passed through Perth last week. “I was in Sydney last in 1889, and in Melbourne in 1890,” he said, and he smiled for a moment as he recalled his memories.

“I came through Adelaide in 1891, and my last visit to Perth, before last week, was in 1892,” said Mr. Dawkins, 'tie did not think it strange that he should have buried himself for so long in the outback of Australia. He viewed the bustling life of to-day with some indifference, but he said he noticed that the young woman of to-day had a better carriage than the women of his day. They had stronger legs, but “they are not better looking.” Mr. Dawkins says he is on his way to claim a family fortune. His legacy did not come as a surprise to him. He knew he was the last of his family—a family that went to New Zealand from England nearly 100 years ago. Mr. Dawkins came to Australia 60 years ago, and when certain formalities are completed in New Zealand he is going “home”—to the Old Country—so that he can settle down at Dorchester, Dorset.