tinpan
Silver Member
Hi Folks During the many years of the gold mining, Colony of Victoria appointed special police called "protect-ants." These police keep the peace amongst the Chinese gold mining community , Kept a watchful eye the other miner's who didn,t like the Chinese and sorted everyday issues and disputes. Often near the large Chinese camp there would be a police camp . Consisting 6 mounted troopers armed with Henry Martini's . Opium was quite legal like many places in the British Empire . With more than 25% of the Chinese community smoking Opium there was a good dollar to be made . The British controlled the Opium Supply on the gold fields. This continued from 1852 till the Substance Control Act of 1904 .
I went to the site of a police camp near a large Chinese community. Started just after sun rise . The birds were in full song but the Md was not. Seems i had drifted away from where the police camp was . Lucky i spotted a bottle dump which gave a better sense of direction. Dug a few flat iron targets and then got something a little more aggressive . Half penny 186? and then a rather ratty looking sliver shilling 1873 . Closely followed by a lead Henry Martini 577/450 carbine 1875 . Plenty of lead seals of the bottle type . seems the police like a drink or two. Nothing for next 60 feet and then i managed a Chinese Cache coin and then another and had 4 in a hour. Even tho its still early spring the fresh breeze of the morning disappeared quickly and the temperature started to rise. In a matter of a couple of days the temp has gone up 30%. Yep with in a week or two the temp should start to get up to 90 degrees . Then summer gets really hot. I will have to switch to later gold mines where theres a fair amount of shade.
tinpan
I went to the site of a police camp near a large Chinese community. Started just after sun rise . The birds were in full song but the Md was not. Seems i had drifted away from where the police camp was . Lucky i spotted a bottle dump which gave a better sense of direction. Dug a few flat iron targets and then got something a little more aggressive . Half penny 186? and then a rather ratty looking sliver shilling 1873 . Closely followed by a lead Henry Martini 577/450 carbine 1875 . Plenty of lead seals of the bottle type . seems the police like a drink or two. Nothing for next 60 feet and then i managed a Chinese Cache coin and then another and had 4 in a hour. Even tho its still early spring the fresh breeze of the morning disappeared quickly and the temperature started to rise. In a matter of a couple of days the temp has gone up 30%. Yep with in a week or two the temp should start to get up to 90 degrees . Then summer gets really hot. I will have to switch to later gold mines where theres a fair amount of shade.
tinpan
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