Part 5

The chief centre of attraction is a partially-wrought limestone quarry, known by the name of the Sheethiehead, right above the village of Kinnesswood, and about a gunshot back from the brow of the Bishop Hill. It is surrounded on all sides by immense heaps of débris, which has been repeatedly dug into during the last thirty years by geologising students, in search of fossils connected with the carboniferous system, and who must have frequently met with the substance which has caused all this excitement, but never imagined it to be gold. The face of the quarry, to the depth of twenty feet from the top, is an accumulation of shale or slate, lying in regular layers, and easily broken. It has been turned to good account of late in the manufacture of slate-pencils of superior quality. Among this shaly accumulation, there are frequent layers of a soft, wet clay or ochre; and it is in this that the brilliants which have dazzled the imagination of so many are chiefly found, and which, accordingly, are frequently thrown out among the débris, of which it comes to form a part. In this quarry, then, and in the heaps around it, hundreds are earnestly busy in laying bare what is beneath; while scores of men, women, and children are silently and earnestly looking on. One has just brought out a ball of stone, or something like stone, about the size of a man's hand, known among the quarrymen as 'a fairy ball;' it is composed of a hard crust, like rusted iron, which, on being broken, is found to contain a yellow shining metal of various shapes and sizes--grains, octohedrons, cubes, and their allied forms, as is the case with gold; and what else can it be but the precious metal, thinks the finder, as he places it in his receptacle, and applies himself anew to his vocation. In a little while he stumbles on another of these balls, as big as a man's hat, which he breaks, and opens with increasing eagerness; when, lo! it is as empty as a 'deaf nut'--the water which percolated through the shale having rusted the iron that goes to form the crust along with the ochre, but failed, as in the previous case, to form crystals in the interior. A third, fourth, and fifth are found to be as hollow as the last, and the 'digger' begins to look a little crestfallen, and abate his eagerness.

But here is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired, he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to go into the bog beyont there, and get him some poteen, which he is sure is making in the stills among the turf;' offering him at the same time a lump of his 'treasure' as payment for his trouble.

Here is a tall, grave, shrewd-looking man, very like an elder of the kirk, throwing away part of his accumulation, but somewhat stealthily retaining a portion in the large cotton handkerchief in which he had placed it, while a respectable-looking woman is saying to him: 'John, the minister says, it's no gold, but only brimstone.' To which he answers, with an audible sigh: 'Well hath the wise man said, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.' Here is a strong-built but lumpish-looking fellow, seemingly a ploughman or day-labourer, leaving the scene of action in evident disgust, who, on being asked if he had been successful, answers roughly: 'No!' and adds: 'I'll sell you this pick for a glass of ale or a dram of whisky.' Here are angry words passing between a middle-aged man and a youth, respecting the right of possession, the former having driven the latter away from a promising-looking place on which he was employed, and commenced operations upon it himself.

It is Saturday; and the mills on the river Leven are stopped at noon, to allow the water in the lake from which it flows to accumulate its supplies for the following week's operations. Freed thus from labour, the spinners hasten to the scene of attraction, and largely swell the crowd already assembled there. The men begin the search with eagerness, while the women content themselves with looking on; but it is evident that they are unaccustomed to the use of the instruments they have assumed, and that long practice will be necessary before they can turn them to much account. Here are bands of colliers able to wield them to purpose, yet how unwilling they appear to be to put forth their strength. They came in the expectation of getting gold for the lifting, which is nowhere the case; and are evidently disappointed in finding that both effort and perseverance are necessary. Indeed, it surprised us to see so little disposition to make and maintain exertion on the part of those who fancied that certain riches would be the result. Notwithstanding the numerous traces of picking, hammering, and shovelling they have left behind them, there is not an excavation a foot deep; while over a crevice in the rock, three inches square, 'a digger' has left the words, scratched with a piece of slate: 'There is no gold here,' as if he had done all that was necessary to prove it. Even in the loose débris around the quarry--with which the substance referred to abounds--there is no trace of a digging wider or deeper than a man's hat. We have seen a student make greater and longer-continued exertion to get a fossil shell, and a terrier dog to get a rat or a rabbit, than any of the gold-seekers have. Burns the poet, in his lament, entitled _Man was made to Mourn_, complains, with more pathos and sentiment than truth and justice, that the landlords will not 'give him leave to toil.' That is not the leave most men desire, but the leave to be idle. If gold were to be got for the lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be disposed to take healthful exercise, much less labour or toil.

We shall not describe the scene as it developed itself on Sunday. It was at total variance with the reputation Scotchmen have acquired for the observance of that day, but in perfect keeping with the notoriety they have gained for their love of strong drink. Monday was the fifteenth day of the gold-fever; and, like most other fevers, it was then at its height. Parties had been on the hill soon after the previous midnight awaiting the dawn, resolved to be the first at the diggings that morning, and 'have their fortunes made before others arrived.' But the lark had not got many yards high in his heavenward ascent, and only struck the first note of his morning-carol, when the mountain concaves sent back echoes of music from a whole band of men, marching at the head of a still greater number, who might have been taken for a regiment of sappers and miners. They have come from a distance; and, like the others who have preceded them, can have known little or nothing of 'balmy sleep, kind nature's sweet restorer,' unless they have taken it at church the preceding day, or in their beds, when they should have been there. The morning has grown apace, and shews the mountain-sides and table-land teeming with life. 'The cry is still, they come;' and long before mid-day, it is calculated that there are at least 1200 persons on the hill--many of them spectators of the scene, but most of them actors in it.

To a curious observer, it was at once an amusing, interesting, instructive, and painful spectacle. It developed character; shewed to some extent the state of society among certain classes and professions; and exhibited human nature in some of its peculiar and less agreeable phases. The most striking and unlikeable manifestations were--ignorance, credulity, superstition, recklessness, and disregard for all that is 'lovely and of good report.' We were particularly struck with the want of foresight, observation, and reflection shewn by a great number of the persons concerned, and of whom other things might have been expected. They had come to 'the diggings' without instruments of any kind with which to bring forth the supposed gold from its recesses; and, more wonderful still, without food to sustain them while employed in finding it. What an easy prey these persons would have been to any one willing to take advantage of them! They willingly parted with much of their supposed treasure for a few crumbs of cake from a boy's pocket, and with still more for a slice of poor cheese from a quarryman's wallet. The man who brought intoxicating drink to them, would have received in return whatever he would have been pleased to demand. One party, and one only, so far as we could learn, was more provident than the rest, having provisions with it equal to its necessities for one day at least, among which whisky held a prominent place.

The substance found and supposed to be gold is very similar to that found in the coal-mines and iron-bands of Fife, which are known to 'crop out' in the Lomond Hills--none being found further north--yet the colliers and miners did not identify the substance when found in other circumstances than those in which they are accustomed to meet with it. The inhabitants of the district in which it is found shewed little sympathy with the excitement produced, a fact which should have led the gold-hunters to pause and ponder; for they were as likely to know the nature of the substance sought as persons at a distance, and just as likely to appropriate it, if it really were gold. But under the influence of their credulity, our adventurers drew a conclusion quite different--namely, that the people at the foot of the hill affected indifference, in order to deceive those at a distance, and keep all the treasure to themselves. It was of no use to tell them, that this said gold had been tested half a century ago, and been 'found wanting.' They wished it to be gold, and they were determined to believe it such. Much advantage was taken of this credulity, even by those who had themselves been its dupes. The most daring falsehoods were invented by them, in order to induce others to befool themselves as they had done. One, according to his own account, had received 30s. for his 'findings;' and another had been offered L.2 for as much as he had collected in half an hour. Such are specimens of the fables they devised, with a view to deceive their acquaintances, and they had manifest pleasure in seeing them produce the desired effect.

Meanwhile, every test known to or conceivable by the amateur chemists--of which there are not few in the counties in which the hills are situated--was put in requisition, and a voice evoked by them, but it would not speak as desired. Others, who knew nothing of chemistry, were torturing it in every possible way--beating it with hammers, to see if it would expand, like gold, into leaf; but instead of this, it only flew off in splinters: then putting it into the smith's forge, to see if it would liquefy and separate from the dross, but it only evaporated in fumes, which drove them from the smithy by their offensive odour. Not one of these experimenters, whether more or less skilled, thought of subjecting it to the simple and certain test of cutting it with a knife, of which the substance in question is not susceptible, whereas gold cuts like tough cheese. Enough, however, had been done to confirm suspicions which had been floating in the minds of many of the diggers, that this rapid wealth-finding was a delusion and a lie. All doubts upon the subject were finally set at rest by the professors of mineralogy in the colleges, and the practical chemists in Edinburgh and Glasgow, informing certain inquirers as to the real nature of this deceptive substance. It is of two kinds: the one with a gray, the other with a brown base--the latter much more common than the former; the one shining with a whitish, the other, with a yellowish lustre. The one is _galena_, a sulphuret of lead; the other, _pyrites_, a sulphuret of iron. These pyrites are very extensively diffused, and are said to be worth about L.2 a ton. Pity it is that even this trifle should be lost to the poor quarryman, who has only to lay them aside when wheeling away his rubbish till they accumulate to such a quantity as to be worth a purchaser's notice, but who does not know where to find a customer.

The Lomonds were now again left to their solitude and silence, a few stray persons visiting them only from curiosity, to see the place and its productions which had caused such excitement. But the mania did not abate all at once. A village patriarch, skilled in fairy lore, entertained some of the gold-seekers with the following legend, which had the effect of sending them in search of the precious metal elsewhere. According to this ancient, a fairy, in times long gone by, appeared on a summer gloaming to a boy herding cattle in the place indicated by the following doggrel, and told him that--

If Auchindownie cock does not craw, If Balmain horn does not blaw, I'll shew you the gold in _Largo Law_.

'But,' added this benevolent son of Puck, 'if I leave you when these happen--for I must then return home immediately--take you notice where the brindled ox lies down, and there you will find the gold.' The cock crew and the horn blew. The fairy vanished, but the boy observed where the brindled ox lay down; but then he did not reflect upon the need of marking the place, but ran home, in his impatience to communicate the delightful information he had received, and on his return found that the brindled ox had risen and left the place; and as he could not determine the spot, the gold still awaits the search of some more reflective and painstaking person. Of course, one and another of the narrator's auditors thought himself such a person, and hied him away to the conical hill that rises so conspicuously at the entrance to the estuary of the Forth. What success attended them there we have not the means of knowing, but we have seen it stated in a local newspaper, that a specimen of the shining substance found in that place had been sent to the editor, and he pronounces it more like gold than the crystals brought him from the Lomond Hills. But 'like,' says the proverb, 'is an ill mark;' and we hope the gold-diggers of Fife will consider themselves as having been already sufficiently deceived by appearances.

The mania lasted fully three weeks, not that any one person was under its influence all that time--for, singularly enough, the man who had been once there rarely if ever returned--but, like an epidemic, it spread wide, and only ceased by a change in the intellectual atmosphere. There could not be less than 300 persons upon an average each day upon the hill, either searching for the supposed treasure, or waiting to ascertain the result from those that did. This would make an aggregate of 6300 in the whole time; but let us keep much within the mark, and take the number convened during that period at 5000. Many of these were men earning 15s. a week; but let us put them all down at 1s. 6d per day each, and allow 1s. for the expense incurred in their going to and from the place. This will make half-a-crown lost and expended by every one of them. This calculation makes L.30 a day, and L.630 for the whole period. Now, we are fully persuaded, that though all the pyrites carried off had been gold in the proportion in which it seemed in the substance, it would not have realised this sum, which is about the price of 200 ounces of gold; so that, in the aggregate, the diggers would have been losers, though some of them individually might have been gainers. But the gainers would have been few in proportion to the whole, for we observed that not more than one man in twenty found even the pyrites, which are probably still more extensively diffused than gold itself ever is, even in the regions where it is now known to prevail: so that the wages of the nineteen unsuccessful men are to be calculated along with those of the successful one; and then it follows, that unless the 'findings' of the latter at the close of the day are equal to the wages of twenty men, there is no increase of capital to the country, no gain upon the whole. Then the man who was lucky at one time, was unlucky at another--like a poacher who snares three hares in a night, but does not snare another for a week, while he has been unable to work during the day, and, in the end, his losses have counterbalanced his gains. Then if this phantom had proved a reality, all the mines and mills within a wide range of the place would have been instantly abandoned, and it must have taken a long time, indeed, to reproduce the capital thus lost to the country. In fine, it must have become necessary to fix a rent upon the diggings, in order to constitute a right to labour in them; and still further, to levy a tax to provide a police, if not a military force, to preserve order; and after these deductions are made, together with the incomes derived from previous occupations, and the great uncertainty connected with the vocation--to say nothing of the labour and discomforts to be endured--we cannot think gold-digging a profitable or desirable pursuit.

COMPETITION AND MONOPOLY.

A Memorandum just issued by that active body, the Sanitary Association, contains the following amusing and instructive account of the memorable competition between the great London water-companies forty years ago, and of the close monopoly in which that reckless and ruinous struggle ended:--

'In 1810, a water mania, like our recent railway mania, suddenly broke out; and the principle of competition, to which the legislature had all along looked for the protection of the public, was put upon its trial. Two powerful companies, which had been several years occupied in obtaining their acts and setting up their machinery, now took the field--one, the West Middlesex, attacking the old monopolists on their western flank; the other, the East London, invading their territory from the opposite quarter. At the same time, a band of dashing Manchester speculators started the Grand Junction Company with a flaming prospectus, and boldly flung their pipes into the very thick of the tangled net-work which now spread in every direction beneath the pavement of the hotly-contested streets.

'These Grand-Junction men quite astonished the town by the magnificence of their promises. "Copious streams" of water, derived, by the medium of the Grand Junction Canal, from the rivers Colne and Brent: "always pure and fresh, because always coming in"--"high service, free of extra charge;" above all, "_unintermittent supply, so that customers may do without cisterns_;" such were a few of the seductive allurements held out by these interlopers to tempt deserters from the enemy's camp.

'The West Middlesex Company, in its opening circulars, also promised "unlimited supplies" to the very "housetops," of water "clear and bright from the gravelly bottom of the Thames, thirteen miles above London Bridge." The East London was not behindhand with the trumpet; and its "skilful" directors, by paying dividends in rapid succession out of capital, raised their L.100 shares to the enormous premium of L.130 before they had well got their machinery into play. Meanwhile the South London (or Vauxhall) Company was started--in 1805--on the other side of the river, with a view to wrest from its old rulers the watery dominion of the south. The war was not, however, carried on in a very royal sort; for, as the travelling mountebank drives six-in-hand through a country town to entice the gaping provincials to his booth, so these water-jugglers went round the streets of London, throwing up rival _jets-d'eau_ from their mains, to prove the alleged superiority of their engines, and to captivate the fancy of hesitating customers.

'The New River Company, thus put upon its mettle, boldly took up the gauntlet. It erected new forcing-engines, changed its remaining wooden pipes for iron, more than doubled its consumption of coal, reduced its charges, augmented its supplies, issued a contemptuous rejoinder to its adversaries, and, appealing as an "old servant" to the public for support, engaged in a war of extermination.

'For seven years, the battle raged incessantly. The combatants sought--and openly avowed it--not their own profit, but their rivals' ruin. Tenants were taken on almost any terms. Plumbers were bribed to _tout_, like omnibus cads, for custom. Such was the rage for mere numerical conquest, that a line of pipes would be often driven down a long street, to serve one new customer at the end. Arrears remained uncollected, lest offence should be given and influence impaired. Capricious tenants amused themselves by changing from one main to another, as they might taste this or that tap of beer. The more credulous citizens, relying on the good faith of the "public servants"--as these once powerful water-lords now humbly called themselves--were simpletons enough, on the strength of their promises, to abandon their wells, to sell off their force-pumps, and to erect water-closets or baths in the upper storeys of their houses. In many streets, there were three lines of pipes laid down, involving triple leakage, triple interest on capital, triple administrative charges, triple pumping and storage costs, and a triple army of turncocks--the whole affording a less effective supply than would have resulted from a single well-ordered service. In this desperate struggle vast sums of money were sunk. The recently-established companies worked at a ruinous loss; and such as kept up a show of prosperity were, in fact, like the East London Company, paying dividends out of capital. The New River Company's dividends went down from L.500 to L.23 per share per annum. In the border-line districts, where the fiercest conflicts took place, the inhabitants sided with one or other of the contending parties. Some noted with delight the humbled tone of the old arbitrary monopolists, and heartily backed the invaders. Some old-stagers stuck to the ancient companies, and to the faces of familiar turncocks. These paid; but many shrewd fellows put off the obsequious collectors, and contrived to live water-rate free. Thus the honest, as usual, paid for the knaves; and the ultimate burden of all these squandered resources fell--also as usual--on society at large.

'Such a state of things could not last; and it came to a conclusion which experience, had it been invoked, might have led parliament to anticipate. For, scarcely a century before, the two chartered East India Companies, after five years' internecine war, had coalesced to form that gigantic confederacy which for years monopolised the Indian trade, and rose to an unexampled pitch of corporate power and aggrandisement, at the cost of the mercantile community.