efforts to enter unresignedly on councils whose aim and end is or should be the greatest happiness. From the judge's bench he must hasten to the warden's chair to settle disputes and grant what is right. As chairman of the Quarter Sessions, as Sub-Collector of Revenues, obligations and duties of an extraordinary nature are imposed on his already taxed bodily and mental frame. No fewer than 6,000 leases have been granted from his offices in Coolgardie and Southern Cross.
He is Worshipful Master of the Coolgardie Lodge of Freemasons, and takes a supreme interest in the Masonic welfare. His personality is striking. Beneath his partially acquired sternness—the prevailing atmosphere characteristic of the bench—there flows an undercurrent of sympathy and good fellowship. And for his scrupulous dispensation of justice on the warden's bench, and for his unfailing attention to his magisterial duties, he is respected and admired. Justice and fairness are two virtues which the wiliest miner can never wrench from his grasp. Citizens of Coolgardie and its suburbs are one in their expressions of gratitude to the oldest-known name in the district.
EUGENIO VANZETTI
SOME time ago, when the attention of the whole world was first turned to Western Australia the group of scientific thinkers studying local conditions of mining was very small. Some of these men accepted Government employment, and some returned to the colonies which they had left. determined rather to stand by the positions they had temporarily abandoned than to throw in their lot with the large gang of speculators by whom Western Australia was then populated. One of this small group, however, Eugenio Vanzetti continued to carefully examine the country, and by hard and steady work he has now obtained a name and reputation second to none in the colony.
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Photo by EUGENIO VANZETTI. Greenham & Evans. |
The subject of this sketch was born in Verona, Italy, some forty years ago; and having there successfully passed his University examinations in chemistry and metallurgy, proceeded, after a few years sojourn in France and Spain, to Australia. He landed some eighteen years ago in Sydney, New South Wales, and practised medicine and chemistry for many years in the towns of Forbes, Parkes, Mount Hope, and Cobar. During his residence in those centres he took an active interest in mining, and gained an extensive and varied knowledge of both copper and gold mines. richer mines which he had lately acquired.
In 1894, attracted by the magnificent prospects of Western Australia, he came hither to further study mining conditions as representative of several important commercial interests. At this time the boom had just commenced in earnest, and thousands of people were rushing to the fields. Mr. Vanzetti devoted all his leisure to observation of the country, but did not allow himself to be carried away by the excitement prevalent everywhere. Making Perth his headquarters, he paid visits of inspection to the fields at intervals. Watching the fortune of others who had arrived with him, he saw some few succeed, but many fail; he himself was enabled to bide the time now arrived, when mining would no longer be a mere gamble, when fortunes would not be made by finding a pocket of gold, and lost almost as quickly, and when large financial corporations, convinced of the permanency of the fields, determined to undertake commercial operations in connection with mining, which will shortly place Western Australia on a level with the older established fields of California and South Africa.
Mr. Vanzetti has, perhaps, been more instrumental than most people in bringing about sound enterprise on the fields, and introducing large capital. The arid nature of the country convinced him that, though rich in gold, the fields would never be the success they should be unless some sound scheme for treating the large quantities of ore available was devised in connection with an adequate water supply. Recognising at once that the difficulties he had to contend with were very different to those at Broken Hill, where the mines are consolidated, he determined, instead of attempting to take water to the mines, to adopt the system of bringing the ore, by means of railways, to the water for treatment, at the same time utilising the trucks on the return journey for supplying the mining people with sufficient water for domestic purposes. With this intention he procured the most permanent water supplies in Western Australia, most of which are situated in the agricultural tracts of country round Northam and Newcastle. Having secured the "Golden Pig" Mine at Southern Cross, and obtained large concessions in the matter of freight from the Government, who viewed his scheme with favour, he floated the Water Trust Mining and Public Crushing Company, with a capital of £250,000, for the purpose of treating stone at Seabrook, near Northam, where a splendid permanent water supply had been selected, from the Golden Pig and other richer mines which he had lately acquired. Some of the most
