A CORNISH MOOR.
But the great mining-field of Saint Austell (“Storsel,” in the local pronunciation), which begins here, almost deserted to-day, its engine-houses wrecked, its great heaps of mine refuse bare and gaunt, has taken on an air of desolation more favourable to uncanny beings than ever. It is not because the tin and copper have “petered out” that this once busy stretch of country now wears the air of some long-deserted mushroom-field of mining industry, sprung up suddenly, and untimely withered, like the Californian goldfields of pioneer times. No, the metals are still there, but at such depths and held in such iron grip of hard-hearted granite, that it would not pay to win the ore with the machinery available at this time. Meanwhile, the Cornish miners have mostly emigrated. To-day, if you would see the Cornishman in full work on his congenial and hereditary employments of tin and copper mining, you should go either to the Straits Settlements or to Australia, whence comes the greater part of those metals in these times.
There, in some Wooloomooloo, or other place of name infinitely repetitive, you shall, who seek, find him; but in Cornwall his kind tends to decrease continually.
But round about Par and Saint Austell enough metal remains to keep some few important mines at work; china-clay, too, is an increasingly important article of commerce. The streams and rivulets that hereabouts run down into Saint Austell or Tywardreath Bay are the very tricolours of water-courses—rust-red with pumpings from the mines, milk-white from the washings of china-clay, and, unpolluted, reflecting the heavenly blue of sunny skies.
A long and grimy road leads past Holmbush and Mount Charles to Saint Austell, all the way rutted with the wheels of heavy waggons, and muddy from the rains.
I remember that, when we were dining at Fowey, we were told by a Cornishman with whom we talked that Saint Austell was the richest town in Cornwall. I do not wish to dispute that statement, for, with that town’s busy neighbourhood of mines, and, more particularly, china-clay works, it would seem to be in receipt of a very great deal of commerce. Waggons, piled up with great lumps of china-clay, are continually lumbering through its narrow and crooked streets; its shops are many and well appointed; and, earnest of enterprise and prosperity, Saint Austell is lighted by electricity, in the streets, and for domestic use; it was, in fact, a pioneer in the movement for the lighting of towns by electricity. But, with all these signs of wealth, the town is not attractive. Saint Austell remains a market-town of gloomy architecture and cramped thoroughfares, whose foot-pavements, of meagre proportions, would not suffice for the accommodation of a village. Yet the people who are seen in these streets are smartly dressed, and altogether un-provincial in appearance. We saw costumes, not few nor far between, that rivalled Bond Street or Piccadilly.
I remarked upon this to the Wreck, who, having had his full share of Saint Austell’s muddy streets, was sarcastically inclined, and observed that, if it was a swell town in one particular, it was a pity that particularity did not extend to its pavements, which had, apparently, shrunk.
Font. Saint Austell.