Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1876 — A Treasure in a Well. [ARTICLE]

A Treasure in a Well.

In the neighborhood of the village of Nikolsk a discovery has been made which is likely to demoralize the industrious peasantry of the district. The eternal dream of peasant idlers has come true for once, and a rich treasure has been found near the very spot where the public of Nikolsk had always looked for it. It seems that not far from this township there is a valley which runs into a gorge called Zaporogue, and in the gorge there is a deep well of the same name. Now tradition has it that the well Zaparogue was once made use of by brigands, who not only drew water from it, but used it as their common purse and exchequer. Into this receptacle were cast coins, old Russian and older Greek, the silver ornaments of the peasants, and the plate of the village churches. It is much easier, however, to hide treasures than to find them, and the honor that should prevail among brigands usually breaks down when the time comes for the company to dissolve. It generally falls out that the treasurer, for Instance, has stored the booty in a place known only to himself, and then some perfidious comrade slays the treasurer, and his goods perish with him, the secret of his hank having been known only to himself alone. Something of this kind may have happened in the Zaparogue plundering company, for although the house has long been extinct, its wealth lay as cunningly hidden as that of the late Sultan seems to be. The tradition of the mysterious store was handed down from sire to son, and the father of the present proprietor began some diggings, or, as it seems now more fashionable to say, commenced some excavations in the neighborhood of the well. Nothing was found, and the research after these endowments were dropped until last year. The steward of the property then hit upon the thought or trenching in a lateral direction, like the treasure-seekers in Poe’s “Gold Bug” (we call it Gold Beetle in England), who dug not at the foot Of the pirate’s tree, but at a distance of thirty yards in a bee line. The Russian inves-

tigntor was as successful as Poe’s hero lie found a groat shining vessel full of ancient spoils. To flli his pockets and those of his assistants was his first idea, land then he sent to the village for sacks. The steward tried to bribe his assistants to silence, but apparently lie did not bribe them highly enough. They claim by Russian law, as it stands, a right to a third of the treasure-trove— *in this esse about 50,000 roubles. Their suit has been dismissed by the local courts, but they have appealed to a higher tribunal, ana very likely all (he wealth of the brigands of the Zaparogue will melt peacefully into the pockets of members of the Russian bar. —London Newt.