THE PROUDEST CITY ON EARTH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7685, 8 February 1904, Page 3

THE PROUDEST CITY ON EARTH.

Kalgoorlie Yesterday And To-day.

Kalgoorlio to-day is the proudest city on earth, writes Mr F. A. McKenzie, in tho Daily Mail. It is ten years and four months old, and has all the confidence of lusty youth. It owns the richest mile of gold bearing land known. It has beaten its rival, Coolgardie, out of the field. It is inordinately proud of its water supply. One expert, Mr G. H. Eeid, declared that water is more talked about and less drunk there than any--wbei-e else he has been. And, finally Kalgoorlie is proud of itself. Never has adoring mother declared the weight of her three-months-old baby so often to admiring visitors as Kalgoorlie citizens declare the size and population of their favored spot. Admittedly, there is some cause for pride. Come with mo to-night on the balcony of the hotel in Hannan-street and look down. The broad thoroughfares are bright with electric light. Electric tramway cars run in all directions. Telephone and telegraph poles run down the centre of the roadways. Zinc and iron and canvas huts are already giving away to brick and stove buildings. The shops are dear enough for Bond-street. The lady whose carriage has just stopped at the hotel door is dressed by Paquin. The great lights on the hills,' and the constant muffled roar of dynamise charges announce the march of industry. Last and most wonderful, the scream of a locomotive comes through the air.

HOW KALGOOKLIE WAS FOUND. Ten years ago, at the beginning of June, 1893, this spot was desert, trodden by man at the risk of life. The burnt scrub, the hot red earth, the absence of shelter and of water, would have made it a fitting centre for a Dantesque inferno. The story has often been told how, on a June day, Pat Hannan, at once luckiest and urnst unfortunate cf prospectors, stumbled along here, done almost to death by thirst an., heat. He had been out searching, and had failed, and was now back on the Jong tramp and ride to civilisation. His horse escaped, and Hannan ran after it. It kicked the soil in its struggle, and the prospector's gaze went down. In a moment the horse was forgotten, and he had fluDg himself on the earth. The horse had shown gold, and Kalgoorlie was found. Ten years ago! Not such a longtime back, and yet what a ten years they have beea. The desolation of the wilderness is to-day a city of 35,000 people. It has had itß boom, its crash, and its revival. It has had its epidemics, carrying off thousands of fine young fellows. Its land rose from nothing to as much as J6IOO a foot. European investors have taken millions out of it, and have sunk millions more. The Government has gained .£150,000 from the sale of its sites. And its wealth has helped to turn Westraiia from a forsaken land to a coming crown of Empire. Tbe excitement has largely gone from from Kalgoorlie to-day. It has become a prosaic business city, whose business is gold extraction. The individual prospector has no chance here now. Ono sometimes sees a lad dry-bJowing on the hot sands. It is heart-breaking work, and he won't earn enough to pay for his ineais. Romance has departed. The daring prospector has been replaced by the working miner, who earns from 10s to 14s 6d a day. The old-time mine manager, who was not sure if telluride was a new mangel wurzel or an odd insect until he was told, has given way to the German and American expert. Meet a citizen in the street, and he will no longer talk of great finds, but of municipal progress, of tramways and bridges, as though he were od his way to Spring Gardens. Water is do longer slowly distilled from the salt lakes or carefully hoarded in water-holes. It is pumped up hundreds of miles from the coast now, and you may have ail you want. The itinerant whisky vendor has been driven off by the limited company owning two storied brick hotels. Churches are springing up in all directions. The theatre attracts some of the best colonial travelling companies. The morning paper has grown, while its proprietor is still a young man, from a sheet the size of a small handkerchief to a handsome journal that would discredit no place. And the owner is now a rising member of the Federal Parliament at Melbourne.

WILL IT LAST. Will Kalgoorlie last ? Is it to sink as Coolgardie has sunk '? Is it to be wholly removed, as Mount Margaret was "? I, for one, cannot believe so. It exists solely on gold, on nothing but gold. But there are no signs at present of the gold supply giving out. Mines are now being worked down as deep as 1600 ft below the surface, and the yield is steadily increasing. The Golden Mile of Boulder City, a suburb of Kalgoorlie, stands unequalled in the world. One great mine, originally floated as a " wild cat " on the London market, is returning a steady stream of gold to the happy simpletons who took it up. The growth of Kalgoorlie has amazed the mining experts, who at first, judging from other regions, thought there was little in it. And it bids fair to go on for some time yet. THE PASSING OF ROMANCE. The okl Kalgoorlie citizen will tell you, if you ask him, that the place is spoiled now. The real time was before the railway and the millionaire came, when you had to force your way up over 200 miles from Southern Cross by camel or coach. Those were the grand days, when fresh meat, fresh milk, or fresh vegetables were unknown, when water was often worth half a crown a gallon, and hard to get at that. The only thing easy to buy was whiskey, and it was of a kind warranted to kill an ordinary man in the briefest possible time. Every man worked like three. - What a mixed crowd it was ! Hero -was the old hand who had been in a hundred fortunes. Here was the exHussar, here the boy from the city office stool, here the Victorian farmer's son, here the English navvy. Every man wag equal here, and none dare to be other than honest. There was no escape for the thief, and at a "roll up," the beating of a tin frying-pan, the camp would assemble to do justice to any offender. Those were the days when you might be without a shilling in the morning and worth at night. Then came the enteric, as it always does under such circumstances, and doctors and nurses were pushed up to

savo a few from death. For tinned dog and bad whisky, hard work in hot sun and hard pleasure after, bad water by the spoonful and bad champagne by the tumbler kills as surely to-day as ever.