The Sun 28 June 1903, page 3
A TRIP FROM KUNANALLING TO BONNIE VALE
by Cobb.
Coming over from Siberia I, put up a night at Kunanalling, and had an opportunity to study the town and its inhabitants. Two or three dismal lights illuminated the principal thoroughfare, a rather lengthy street dotted with a store, a barber’s shop and a pub or two. The one at the corner facing on its northern side, The premier, a sort of dog-leg continuation, of the main street, is run by a combination of amiable Jews under the distinguished patronage of the local hair-cutter whose establishment I have already mentioned. The tonsorial artist apparently runs the town, and labours under the familiar appellation of “Doc.” He cuts hair while you wait, shaves, runs raffles, is the local agent for numerous goldfield’s papers, and last but not least performs the onerous duties of tooth yanker to the community.
Numerous legends are told of his ‘Fang Grabbing Feats’.
Noticing a melancholy looking resident with a distorted countenance standing near the pub lamppost and surveying the prospect gloomily, I approached and enquired the reason for his twisted visage, his jaw being about an inch and half out of plumb, “Doc done it”, he explained ; ” I ‘ad the toothache, and like a fool goes to him. He dragged it out all right, but look at me — ruined fer life, me beauty gone fer ever. He planks yer in a chair, straps yer down so as yer can’t move, and putting his foot on yer chest gets to work. Of course yer can’t budge a hinch, and its no good yellin’ because he’s got a wimp of a boy wot drags a stick around the corrugated iron of the dentistry – as he calls it to deaden the agonising howls of his victims. I’m only hangin’ round here for revenge,” concluded the morbid person and he strolled off with his hands deep in his pockets.
The Premier Hotel Kunanalling – Photo SLWA
The Jewish hostelry was lively, as the men lurched in from the mines and, under the feeble bar lamp, discussed beer. Doc. was there too, hypnotising the audience and beating them at poker. He is a grey headed battler with abnormally large feet and lets off language with an astonishing flow. The landlady, a buxom creature of numerous summers, regarded him with a complacent eye, and evidently saw much to admire in his lumbering proportions. In the hum of conversation I learnt of the progress of matters generally in the district.
The Premier Mine is cleaning up the remainder of the sands accumulated on the surface and expects to cease operations in a couple of months when everything will have gone through the cyanide vats. Some tributors are still at work, but don’t get any of the excellent crushings which were obtained when the property was first let in sections to the public. However, a show called the Emu, which belongs to the Premier Company, is confidently expected to blossom into a substantial producer, and the main shaft is being deepened preparatory to a systematic opening up of the mines resources.
“And what of the Berliner and Besta’s Sydney Mint for which great things were predicted?” I asked “Oh,” replied a tall man in dungarees, “it’s only patchy, when they got down a bit the lode dwindled into a small leader with many blanks. Whatever the result of crushing’s they keep to themselves. They have abandoned the idea of creating a battery, and I think they have about got all the good things out of the Mint.” “Did the original owner ever turn up again?” I further queried. Here I may explain that the prospector of the Sydney Mint, a Frenchman, went for a tour through Europe, filling in the old workings before going and giving a sort of shady authority to Berliner and his mate to take charge during his absence. As he never returned Berliner took possession. “The latest we heard about the old Frenchy” answered the long man, “was that he had drunk himself to madness, and was now an inmate of a French lunatic asylum.” If perchance he should come back, he has no chance of getting the Sydney Mint back, because Berliner and Co. have secured it.
Gradually the loungers dwindled away from the pub, Doc being the last to wander homewards, the bar door was closed, and soon repose reigned supreme in the town. Next day I took a box seat with the coach driver,
a one-eyed person of marvellous garrulity.
Such spells of silence as did occur while the conveyance rumbled on to Bonnie Vale were occupied by him in squirting spittle through his teeth at the head of the off-side leader horse. Failing to hit the exact spot he had in view, he tickled up the aggravating animal dexterously with his whip, and then became talkative again, telling of his coaching days, of the journey through hail and snow in the east, in marvellous landscapes on the sides of precipices that did credit to his wondrous imagination.
The Bonnie Vale Hotel 1907 – Photo TROVE
I’ll back Sam to smother the very choicest of Goldfield’s liars. Around the last hill’s circuit, and the coach thundered into the Sleepy Hollow of the Goldfields. Two dogs came up and looked at us but were too tired to bark. The landlord surveyed us lazily from the bar door, and the only citizen in the street, an obfuscated Welshman, made a painful effort to be humorous. He broke down in the attempt and was a frightful exhibition of physical prostration, as he collapsed on the footpath. As I patrolled the somnolent village, various unsuspected householders came to light, poking their heads through windows and doors to drink in the advent of a stranger. Going into a pub for a refresher, I knocked for ten minutes without unearthing anyone. At length a customer roosting on an upended beer barrel in the parlour began to shout ‘Maria’ there’s a bloke wants a drink ” A young lady who was officiating at the wash-tub in a detached building hastily abandoned her occupation and put in an appearance with soap suds hanging from her elbows.
“Beer” I said, and she pulled it without comment dropping a bubble or two into the liquid just to flavour it. Sweeping my cash into the till, she departed, ere I could absorb the full strength of her charms, and I was left to consume the beverage alone. As I swung into the street, miners were going on shift, towards the Vale, the Westralia and the Victoria Consols — Bonnie Vale’s three productive mines. Harnessed up with bowyangs, and carrying cribs and billy cans, they vanished among the forest of machinery and timber that littered the surface, and I following in their wake, around great mounds of tailings.
On the hill is C E Stokes palatial residence, Westralia’s attorney and general manager. He is in clover. Drawing a fine salary and provided with comfortable quarters, he has reason to bless the day old Sol Israel, his predecessor made his departed from the company’s employment. Why they want such a useless ornament — Stokes is a man whose mining accomplishments can be set at nil — it is quite beyond my comprehension.
Talking of Stokes reminds me of an old story that concerns him and Sir Jerry Smith with whom he claims a blood relationship. In the boom days when Jerry was governor of this State, Stokes induced him to dabble in various enterprises. Amongst them was the Australia Hotel, in Coolgardie. Jerry was cajoled into taking a share on the strong representations regarding probable profit that Stokes set forth. Jerry succumbed with becoming docility, and very soon, not only realised that he had entered into a losing speculation, but also came in for a lot of adverse criticism which culminated in the law courts when Jerry was forced to pay up certain liabilities connected with the hotel business.
Some time afterwards Stokes sidled up to him while Smith was paying an official visit to the goldfields. He did so with considerable diffidence, as he fully expected a display of wrath from the deluded governor. “How are on Sir Gerard?” began his deferential relative. “Stokes!” replied Jerry, drawing himself up and gazing at Stokes as if he were a serpent Stokes, Stokes!”‘ thundered the heavy official” Stokes, I don’t know whether to call you a fool or a rogue. But I will be generous and designate you as the former.”
They were friends again afterwards, and it is doubtless due to ex-governor Smith’s influence that Stokes now occupies a fat position on the Westralia, his mine is practically the backbone of Bonnie Vale, for although the Vale of Coolgardie is still plodding away doggedly, it employs only a small crowd of men and may be regarded as a back number. The Victoria Consols is in the hands of tributors, and the Bendigo and Coolgardie mine has long since ceased practical mining operations, the work done there now being confined to the treatment of sands. Between Bonnie Vale and Coolgardie, a distance of seven miles, various mining efforts are visible along the road, but they belong more or less to the old boom days.
Moya Sharp
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