Australia -- Gold discoveries -- Fiction; Ballarat (Vic.) -- Fiction
It may be here explained that the gentleman placed in charge of a branch
bank on a leading goldfield in Australia differs widely from the portly,
white-waistcoated, decorous potentate generally cast for the character
in the metropolis or the large towns of the settled districts. He must
be young, in order to undergo easily the shifts and privations of
goldfield life. High-couraged the man needs to be, who sleeps with one
revolver under his pillow and another at his right hand; himself,
perhaps, and his assistant, the sole custodians of a hundred thousand
pounds in gold and specie, within a bark-walled, bark-roofed shanty,
surrounded by an unscrupulous population, among whom, though not
disproportionately so, are some of the most reckless desperadoes,
refugees, and unhung murderers anywhere to be procured. He must be free
of speech and open of manner, so as in a general way to commend himself
to the miner of the period; a man, as a rule, who, while respecting and
preferring a gentleman in matters of business, abhors formality. It is
by no means to his detriment if, in his hours of ease, he demonstrates
his ability to give points at billiards or euchre to nearly all comers,
or to 'knock out in six rounds' the leading talent in the glove
tournaments periodically held. In addition to these various gifts and
graces he must have a cool and strong head, a firm will, and a resolute
determination to do his duty to his employers at whatever hazard, and
finally, while not holding aloof from the amusements of the hour, to
remain well governed, sober and temperate in all things, amid the
manifold and subtle temptations of the 'field.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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