If the internet is to be believed, the "stemming gold" line (which never made sense to me) is a reference to gold smelters (or whatever the name is for someone who extracts gold) "liberating" tiny quantities of gold from their workplace in their pipe-stems.
If the internet is to be believed, the "stemming gold" line (which never made sense to me) is a reference to gold smelters (or whatever the name is for someone who extracts gold) "liberating" tiny quantities of gold from their workplace in their pipe-stems.