["A Fascinating Industry", The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), Sunday 07 August 1910, page 1S]
A Fascinating Industry
--- Fortunes Made at Pearling
--- The Whites on a Good Wicket at Broome
---Some Precious Pearls
---Social Customs and Snide
---Some of the Personalities---Of One of the Most Remarkable Towns in Australia
The formation of the pearl is yet a debatable problem, despite the antiquity of the subject. One theory is that it is the result of a disease contracted by the oyster--the larger the pearl, the more virulent and long-standing the complaint. Thousands of pearls are doubtless spat out into the ocean's depths when the ailing oyster is at last purged of its distemper. This theory goes further, and accounts for the occurrence of blisters which are merely shell built over pearls the oyster could not eject. But 'tis a question for eminent fishologists. The free pearl is almost always found on the lip of the shell, and is consequently easily discoverable to the opener. To leave no tracks a shell "may be induced to open by placing it in the sun or by pouring hot tea over it. The search for and extraction of the pearl within is then an easy matter.
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Pearls go on to the market unobtrusively, but some high-class gems, and what they were sold for, are within the range of common knowledge. A beautiful stone found by Pearler Moss, weighing 106 grains, was ultimately disposed of for £4,000, although at one time £6,700 was offered for it. Hawking had diminished its value in the eyes of connossieurs. Another, discovered by Pearler Scanlan, found a buyer at £3,010. Eacott's pearl, wormed out of the ocean by a binghi, realised £5,000, and is said to have been subsequently sold for the enormous sum of £17,000. It scaled 160 grains. The value of a pearl depends on its shape and lustre, the perfectly round stone taking pride of place in the market. Next in order come the drop, the double-button, the button, and the pear-shaped pearl. Baroque is the term applied to irregular pearls, and sells at a few shillings a carat. Skinning pearls to improve their appearance and give them additional value in the eyes of the dealer is the work of the expert.
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All the shell raised by Robison and Norman's luggers is opened on the deck of the Ena, under the personal supervision of Captain White, after which the colored crew take possession and put it in a fit condition for packing. This likewise is the routine followed by other pearlers, having schooners attached to their fleets. The boxes conveying the shell to market run into about seven to the ton. Captain White lives on the Ena from year end to year end, and enjoys a large measure of popularity throughout the pearling industry.
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Thye Ena's slop-chest--the local title given to the store aboard--holds anything you want on the pearling grounds--clothing, food, gear for the luggers, and grog, but this, as Captain White explained, was only stocked for medicinal purposes. In the good old semi-piratical times a schooner's slop-chest was merely a drinking den where men debauched and fought and developed jim-jams; an instrument for the impoverishment of the pearlers and a source of wealth to unprincipled purveyors of illicit booze. Schooners still carry a drop of liquor, but they are no longer floating shanties.
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The Mina, tender to the Ena, plies regularly between; the grounds and Broome under the command of Captain Franck, who is regarded as one of the most competent seamen and navigators working the northern seaboard. His experience of handling pearling fleets goes back to the boom-days of Thursday Island, long before Broome had come into public notice. The skipper of the Mina is a massive man standing well over six feet in height, and is just as good-hearted as he is big. The writer of this extends him a hearty vote of thanks for much generous hospitality while on a visit to the Pearling Grounds.
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Broome doesn't freeze on to strangers to any large extent; nobody is wanted to investigate the multi-colored aspect of the social fabric. The pearling industry is a beautiful monopoly for just on a hundred Britishers, whose boats gather in all the shell exported from the Nor'-West-port. The whole of the indented labour, working at from 25s. to £2 per a month per head, aggregating 2049 colored men, of whom 1042 are Japanese and 750 Malays, is for the special behoof of this handful of whites and their friends. Last financial year, ending June 14, 1910, they whacked up between them the substantial sum of £185,816, representing the value of pearl-shell only raised during the period. The worth of pearls is put at £54,000, but so much snide is bought by dealers, illicit and otherwise, whose purchases or sales are of course not recorded that no adequate estimate can be formed as to the quantity of gems raised every year. A hundred and fifty thousand pounds would be nearer the mark. Considering what a good thing the inhabitants of Broome have got all to themselves away on the Nor' West coast, it is not surprising that the investigating stranger meets with a cold reception.
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One of the interesting sidelights of pearling is the business of dealing in snide or stolen pearls. All buyers are supposed to have licenses, for which the State charges £10 a year apiece, but many people at Broome probably provide a ready market having no compunction--according to general conversation--in annexing for a few pounds the drop purloined by some diver or shell-opener, employed on somebody else's boat. And one wonders what certain opulent-looking persons lolling aimlessly ashore do for a living? Out on the grounds there is always an agent of the snide buyer, colored or white, prowling through the fleets with sovereigns--notes may lead to detection--ready to effect a sale. Sometimes the suspected receive is dealt with drastically, and precipitately retires to Broome. The murder on the Mist (a schooner whose remains lay long on the foreshore of the town), which terminated in the hanging of three men who did to death a travelling Jew hawker in search of gems a few years ago is a ghastly incident of the pearl-buying industry.
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Boat dummying by low whites for Japs and Chows is said to be prevalent at Broome, although nobody so far has been convicted of the offence. That strong reasons exist for suspecting the abuse is proved by the recent action of the Federal Government in compelling all having luggers in their possession to swear affidavits as to their ownership. Until this provision is complied with, the necessary labor permits to work the vessels are withheld. Still, the affidavit is only a trifling thing to the white-skinned shicer who would consent to prostitute himself to the colored man for lucre. The chief worry of Sub-collector of Customs Huggins is how to get at the bottom of this nefarious dummying business; the cunning and unprincipled white baffles him every time.
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Dog's life though it may be, pearling is a business full of anticipation and hope. There is no industry in the world that offers such chances of fortune quickly made, no gamble more pregnant with success. Shell may vary in price with the whims of the market, but the pearl is ever-precious and commands its heap of golden sovereigns always. Providing a man sticks to his lugger and opens his own shell for the gems that may be within he must soon win his way to opulence.
