CALIFORNIA. STRAWS FROM THE GOLD COAST. (From the Polynesian.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 390, 9 January 1850, Page 3

CALIFORNIA. STRAWS FROM THE GOLD COAST. (From the Polynesian.)

No. ix. Apologetic — Duplicate straws— -New wonder of the ivor ld — Gioivl/i and business of San Francisco — Philoiophy of high rents — - Commission business; Example of splendid "operations" — Gambling business — Signs of a storm — llow bubbles burst. j San Francisco, September 2!) , 1549. Straws, you know, arc of divers sorts.— Possibly, the loose nhcaves I send you, culled as they are in haste from a wild field, may sometimes contain duplicate straws : the fact is, I'm busy, and my gleaning is so hurried, I cannot always stop to think whether the stiaw I have in hand — be it oaten, wheaten, rye, or any other, has been sent you in any previous wisp or not. If you see too many that look alike, expunge ad libitum. Repetition of thoughts or fucts is hardly commendable, but strain, you know, that drift over the ocean, aie not always arranged by the surf in the most methodical way. But if my straw? will aid you in the composition of your weekly periodical bricka, or make suckers through which any thirsty Hawaiian may imbibe the sweet cider of Californa news, or help to Match the dilapidated roof of some iutelcctual tabernacle, or even tickle the mirth-hump of some lover of pleasantry, the pains of the gleaner will be sufficiently rewarded, and the straws, it is hoped, will not all be found worthless stubble. San Francisco — youVe had this straw before, I know — the same— yet, not the same— -yea, the San Francisco of straw No. 9, is no more the San Fiancisco of straw No. 1, than the New York of eighteen fortynine is the New Amsterdam of the Knickerbockers. A month's absence lands me in a new city. I look in vain for half the houses I knew a moon or two ago. The "old barna" have been pulled down, and stalely edifices rise on their ruim. The growth of San Francisco is the last wonder of the world— be it the eighth or the sixteenth ; I had almost called it the greatest. The street* have the crowded, busy, excited aspect of the most crowded and excited portions of New York. Men are daihing to .and fio, their hands full of papers and their heads of grand projects. The California •tyle of architecture — wood and canvas blended— h. 1 house, half tent, is rapidly giving place (o massive and ornamental edifices, two, three and four stories high — Merchants' Exchange, and Reading Room — half a dozen grand hotels, and a score of large warehouses, are now going up as fast as gold and masterbuilders find hard-working caipenters can build them. To see a block of heavy stores thronged with cv:« tomcrs, where kit winter you shot ducks in a duckpond, or long rangci of fine mansions, where three months ago you could not force your way through the thicket of shrub oak, astonishes even the man | who has remained on the ground. It is no marvel I that it seems like a marvel to (he absentee of a year or six months, or to the newly arrived, who cxpccicd to find here an uninhabited wilderness. No city in the world, it it safe to say, ever grew with the rapidity of this — "Home was not built in a day," but Suu Francisco wa«. The old adage won't hold. And the business of the place is immense, but not immense enough, I fear, to justify the enormous rents paid. The fact is, the present rate of rents is unnatural. The rush of shipping hither, with rich and miscellaneous cargoes, which must be disposed of or not, created an unparalleled auction and commission business. Mirjhauts of this class made enormous charges and enormous pro- ! fitd, and paid extravagant rents. They could afford I it j but it was often at the expense of the owner at home. And when the price is stated at which goods I have been Bold bete, it U by no means an index of the profits to the shipper,— c. g., A merchant shipped from the eait an invoice amounting to .#2,500, and ' the goodi were sold heee for >S'B,oo0 — a grand tpecu- | lation, it would teem, and enough to set half the tradesmen in Yankeedom crazy. But, look at the expenses— freight, lighterage, cartage, storage, com- | mission charges, &c., &c., in all a bill of «87,600 ! ] leaving for tbe original shipper -81 ,200 or #1,300 out of pocket by the operation. This is a real case, and a sample, I imagine, of many other " operations" by which adventureis expect to make themselves richer than CraesusI But I was speaking of rents. The gamblers, too, | have been paying enormous rents. Tbe rate of 20, 40, and 80, thousand dollurs a year for a gambling [ tenement, has been quite moderate. '' The fool and his gold soon patted" is tliu principle that explains it, i Music, liquor, and the infatuation winch i& the concoj mitant of the black art, draw and drive melancholy j thousands into these whirpools of ruin. A runaway | sailor digs three weeks or three monthi, as the case may be, in the mountains, and returns with -8*3,000 in j gold; in half the time he has spent digging it, this I sum finds its way into the clutches of the keeper of i the gambling house ; and the wretch who has worse I than wasted it, perhaps dies next day in the street or ! in some back lane, from the effects of his debauch.

Now the heavy business of the commission merchant nnd gamblers fixed the high stund.ud of re»ta~renU, which ordinary dealers and lebiilers can ill nflbid to pay ; and if they cannot pay them, rents must come down ; and if rents come down, and heavy opciaton fail to meet their engagements, and real estate and other property falls, and castles huilt m ibc air come tumbling down about people's ears, and not a tenth part gold and silver enough is found in circulation to facilitate the busines based on it, why, what then? — Did you never see little Johnny with his pipe and basin of soapsuds ? And did you never notice lhafc when the bubbles had grown just about so luge, and had riien just about so high, and had begun to look vei v huge, and very magnificent, that they always burst T The business of California is by no means all a hubbla — far enough from it. The score of millions dug from the mountains make a specie basis aolid enough for an immense supcratmctuic of frade. in thi« repcer speculation here differs fiom the credit tratuuetion? of other duys. But tb.3 trouble is, men won't keep within the limits of the basis, and it is to be faired that operations here will be crowded just us far beyond the limits of the gold and silver actually at command, as in other well known speculations, they have been pushed beyond the limits of nothing, consequently a similar result may cniue. I fruit, however, this wonderful city, which ha? grown from a thousand to some twenty thousand inhabitants in half a year, is not d-stinod to suffer the reverse which this train of th.,n»ht would seem to suggest. Ilcareu shield her fiom sucli calumity. Panorama.