No one was prepared to credit
such a statement. Indeed, unbelief on the point was prevalent until well
on into 1852, when Bendigo had been added to Ballarat, and when
Melbourne was seen to be full of gold, which the newly-instituted "gold
broker" was already practised, with critical eye as to quality, in
weighing out by the hundred or the thousand ounces, and which diggers by
hundreds were carrying away in their pockets, in most cases entirely
unrecorded, to Tasmania, Sydney, and Adelaide. There was hardly any
Customs record at the first, and only a very partial one for a while
after, until the diggers ceased thus to carry off the gold, upon finding
that the rival brokers gave them fair and full value. The yield of 1852
was estimated at no less than fifteen millions.
How the diggers, utterly inexperienced as they mostly then were, came so
suddenly upon such surpassingly rich drifts has never been, to my mind
at least, satisfactorily explained, unless the case be summarily
affiliated to those possibilities of throwing "sixes" in dozen
successions, and such like. In no one year, since 1852, have the
Victorian goldfields, although comparatively the most productive,
yielded even a near approach to fifteen millions.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169