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25. Maddicks (1981) p. 21
26. ibid., p. 47.
27. D'Aprano (1994) pp. 48 & 51.
28. GentiUi (1988) p. 57,
29. On projects as diverse as Argentine railroads and French highways, the
tunnelling skills of the Italian labourers were already well known.
30. Maddicks (1981) p. 16. Though Maddicks refers to this miner as G. Cacerote,
he is almost certainly the Giuseppe Casarotti Usted in Gentilli (1981). As early
as 1853, a parUamentary committee estimated that the average digger's income
was about 34 shillings per week and sUghtly more for those working the rich
Mt Alexander fields,
31. Maddicks (1981) p. 25.
32. 'I reached the so-called land of gold, I thought my dreams had come tme, I
thought I had reached my desired goal, I thought, last of all, that I would find
recompense for the sacrifices made and the perils endured. Vain illusions,
where I sought gold I found stones, where I sought a living I found hunger and
grim eyed misery, and with labour almost disproportionate to the strength of
- man I can barely gain a cmst of bread', anonymous letter 1 April 1855, Cheda
(1979) Vol 2, p. 33.
33. 'sometimes you find iX [gold] to the value of one hundred or up to two hundred
francs in a single pan but so many times you don't find enough even to touch,
they are rare and extremely rare those times that you find so much, some days
you find something and some days you don't find anything, not even your
costs', TranquiUo Pata, letter 13 April 1856, ibid,, p, 180.
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