"jeweller's shops,"
or"homeward bounders,"
ten, (10) first-rate claims, and the remainder good payable ones. The very outside number of miners obtaining gold, three hundred (300). However rich these few claims may be, without other gold is struck, and that soon, the population we have here will soon be reduced to a fifth of the present number. In my previous communications I have had occasion to notice the size of claims that are allowed upon this field, and I am sorry to have occasion again to call attention to this subject. I know that those few in possession of these rich claims will not agree with what I have to say, but I am positive that the bulk of miners here will see the justice of my remarks. On the patch or lead now working, four men can on the block system hold 80 x 80 feet, or equal to sixteen men's claim on Lambing Plat, or in other words, one man's claim here is equal to four men's claim on Lambing Flat, and that in the richest ground ever opened in New South Wales; many, I dare say, will think that the difficulties of sinking is the cause of these large claims, but this is not the case, the only difficulty being slabbing the shaft, the sinking being easy. Scores of shafts on Chinese Gully, Lambing Flat, sunk a depth of from sixty to eighty feet required more labour than the ground here, and the largest claims there for four (4) men was 10 x 10 feet, and this extent of ground was sufficient to attract a huge population. There is another system adopted here that I think wrong; the claims are allowed to amalgamate by registration, that is four men's names are registered as the working claim, and four men as the non-working claim. Now where there is any great difficulty in sinking this may be allowed, but here such is not the case and leads to great injustice, for there is little doubt that although eight names may be registered and miner's rights taken out, there are on this field cases of six or seven men holding an extent of ground equal to thirty-two men's claims on Lambing Flat, and richer than any ground ever opened in this colony. If with the sinking we have here and the richness of the limited ground, 80 x 80 feet, is not a sufficient extent of ground for four men to work without amalgamation they do not deserve to have a claim; had the regulations been adopted here (and I can see no reason why they should not have been) instead of some 300 men getting the whole of the gold there would have been from 1200 to 1500 -- more prospecting would have taken place, and three times the ground opened on this field in a short time than I am inclined to think ever will be now. Both miners and storekeepers will yet find that the policy adopted here will not advance either of their interests, the select few who have possession of the rich claims excepted.