CALIFORNIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 67, 17 April 1852, Page 7

CALIFORNIA.

[From the Sydney papers.] By the " Chrishn," San Francisco, journals to the 10th of January have been received in Sydney. The Steam ship " Golden Gate," „.which arrived that morning at 1 o'clock, is reported to have brought nearly 1000 passengers from Panama, where from 700 to 800 others were waiting for vessels to come on to San Francisco. Governor Biglar delivered his inaugural address before both houses of the Californian Legislature on the 7th of January. The result of the elections in the various States showed a decided democratic ascendancy. The " Panama" journals abound in notices of robberies, murders, and depredations of all descriptions. The offenders are generally natives, who are becoming daily more reckless and insolent to the travellers. Attacks are constantly being made upon those apparently unprotected, who are in all cases robbed and, frequently seriously injured. The steamer "Montgomery," with 2500 bales of cotton on board had been destroyed by fire on the Mississipi. It was stated that over two millions of dollars were shipped from the port of New York to foreign countries during the first week in November. Notwithstanding this drain, the money market is described as " looking better.'

What has California Cost. —A recent American paper has the following statement, hearing out the old adage, that "it is not all gold that glitters :"—" We spent one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, first and last, in the Mexican war, to acquire New Mexico and California. We have carried into the harbour of California five hundred millions' worth of property. We have sacrificed 50,000 lives in California. We have lost the work and labour of 300,000 men for three years in California. And, as our only recompense for all this, we have received from about eighty to ninety millions dollars worth of gold!"

Distance of the Sun.—lmagine a railway from here to the sun. How many hours is the sun from us ? Why, if we were to send a baby in an express train, going incessantly at a hundred miles an hour, without making any stoppages, the baby would grow to a boy —the boy would grow to be a man—the man would grow old and die —without seeing the sun, for it is distant more than a hundred years from us. But what is this compared to Neptune's distance ? Had Adam and Eve started by our railway at the Creation, to go from Neptune to the sun, at the rate of fifty miles an hour, they would not have got there yet; for Neptune is more than six thousand years from the centre of our system.— Household Words.