Old news from Armidale and New England

Empire (Sydney), Thursday 11 June 1874

WE have often heard, says the Armidale Chronicle, of diggers selling their best boots and breeches to enable them to stick to a claim they have faith in ; but the strangest of all stories reaches us this week. There lived on one of the tin mines not very far from Armidale, a man and his wife with their family; the man was a tin-miner, and, sad to relate, fortune had not in this instance favoured the brave. However, he believed in his claim, and held on. To them appears a gay Lothario[1], who becomes enamoured of our tin-miner’s wife, and she evidently regarded him with a little favour. This Lothario at last makes a proposition to the husband to purchase his wife from him, and pay, not the traditional thirty pieces of silver, but of gold, vulgarly termed “sovs.” No sooner said than done, the “grass widower”[2] now takes charge of the L30 and his children, while the buyer has brought his purchase towards Armidale, and, whether he will find he has bought in haste to repent at leisure, he will at any rate for some time have the enjoyment of his bargain.

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[1] "Lothario", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothario
[2] "Grass widower", see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grass_widower