'A Golden Shanty'

One of Australia's most famous goldfields short stories, written by Edward Dyson, was published originally as 'A Profitable Pub' in the Bulletin's Christmas issue, 1887. J.F. Archibald used Dyson's story as the title of the Bulletin's first anthology (1890). On an old abandoned goldfield near Ballarat stands the Shamrock Hotel, owned by the Irish-Australian Michael Doyle. Doyle's only neighbours are Chinese fossickers who appear intent on dismantling his hotel brick by brick. Doyle's running battle with the Chinese culminates in their offering him £50 for the building. The elated Doyle family are celebrating this handsome offer when, sharpening his carving knife on one of the hotel's bricks, Doyle discovers the reason for the Chinese enthusiasm for his pub - the bricks are made of gold-bearing clay. Chasing off the 'thavin' hathins', Doyle takes the pub apart himself, collects nearly £2000 in gold, goes off to Melbourne and becomes a Justice of the Peace, where it is his greatest delight to sentence any Chinaman who comes under his jurisdiction to 'foive pound or a month'. Despite its humour, 'A Golden Shanty' reflects the hostility that existed between White men and the Chinese on the goldfields.

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