lling on a steamer round the coast was
attracted by a seedy, out-of-elbows individual seated all alone. He got
into conversation with him. The seedy stranger was reticent about
himself, but voluble about others, particularly those who were making
their piles in Western Australia--he was going there if he had to walk.
The idea of a man walking was a repulsive thought to a racing man, so he
most generously insisted upon this dilapidated acquaintance accepting
L10 to help him to get to the goldfields. The stranger was to pay him
back some day if he ever struck oil. Time went on, and one morning the
Good Samaritan received a letter with the L10 enclosed and a request to
make an appointment. The two met again. The out-of-elbows
fellow-traveller turned up to keep the appointment he had asked for,
dressed in the height of fashion; he not only looked a millionaire, but
he was one! Yet he was sad and depressed, and recited the history of his
good fortune to the good-natured sportsman in a most dismal tone. Though
his words were full of gratitude and thankfulness, he seemed, strange as
it may appear, somewhat reproachful.

"Yes, thanks to you, I have struck a gold mine, the one the world is now
talking about, and you shall have half of it; that is the reason I asked
to see you."

"Not I," was the reply. "I don't want it; besides, you have relatives."

"I had," said the millionaire, looking sorrowfully away. "I had three
brothers. I was very fond of them, and sent for them when my luck came
and, thanks to you, my fortune also. They arrived in Western Australia
full of life and hope and jubilation, three of the finest and strongest
fellows in the Colonies. They were all dead and buried within a
month--stricken down by the damned typhoid fever."

[Illustration: PROSPECTORS.]

Every day I spent in Australia I had similar stories to these told
me--of how those rushing into the death-trap to dig up gold were buried
themselves instead. Every day I heard of the swindles as well as of the
sewerage. Both the towns and the business stank. Bogus mines were
foisted into the "new chum," and huge companies started to work them;
businesses advertised as big affairs with tremendous capitals were in
reality a paltry village hut or two, with a few pounds of goods flung
into them.

If you are not robbed in England right away by such swindles, you are
invited to sail for Western Australia.

I met the manager of a Western Australian mining pro