previous to this a man named Edward Proven had found gold in the same
neighbourhood.

Most Governments nowadays encourage in every possible way the discovery
of gold-fields, and rewards ranging from hundreds to thousands of pounds
are given to successful prospectors of new auriferous districts. The
reward the New South Wales authorities meted out to a wretched convict,
who early in this century had dared to find gold, was a hundred lashes
vigorously laid on to his already excoriated back. The man then very
naturally admitted that the alleged discovery was a fraud, and that
the nugget produced was a melted down brass candlestick. One would have
imagined that even in those unenlightened days it would not have been
difficult to have found a scientist sufficiently well informed to put a
little nitric acid on the supposed nugget, and so determine whether it
was the genuine article, without skinning a live man first to ascertain.
My belief is that the unfortunate fellow really found gold, but, as Mr.
Deas Thompson, the then Colonial Secretary, afterwards told Hargraves in
discouraging his reported discovery, "You must remember that as soon
as Australia becomes known as a gold-producing country it is utterly
spoiled as a receptacle for convicts."

This, then, was the secret of the unwillingness of the authorities to
encourage the search for gold, and it is after all due to the fact
that the search was ultimately successful beyond all precedent,
that Australia has been for so many years relieved of the curse of
convictism, and has ceased once and for all to be a depot for the
scoundrelism of Britain--"Hurrah for the bright red gold!"

Since the year 1851 to date the value of the gold raised in the
Australasian colonies has realised the enormous amount of nearly