CALIFORNIA. [From the People's Advocate, March 2.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 489, 10 April 1850, Page 3

CALIFORNIA. [From the People's Advocate, March 2.]

By letters and passengers arrived here by the Spec from San Francisco, we learn that the setting in of the winter rains had, as anticipated, taken thousands of the new arrivals by surprise, and the consternation occasioned by finding themselves without a roof vx shelter from the piercing cold, was perfectly indescribable. Those who had been longer there had suffered equally, and the shattered constitutions which their weakly and sickly forms presented, almost prevented recognition by old acquaintances. The fever and ague, diaarhcea, and dysentery, had made dreadful havoc in the neighbourhood of the city, and the awful pictures of the tent-town or encamping ground at Happy Valley are horrifying in the extreme ; to multitudes it had proved "the valley of the shadow of death;" and some of our informants, who went there in the Inchinnan, could with much difficulty find enough of unoccupied ground on which to pitch a tent, the cleared surface presenting the appearance of numerous graves,' and forcibly impressing on their downcast spirits

that they had been thrown' by their Jown'voluntary exile into a Golgotha, instead of the fanciful Paradise which their imagination ;had pictured to them on deserting their, home in New South Wales. Men with hearts full, of* sorrow and repentance; 'with tears" in ?ibeip eyes, implored some/of'jthe passengibl-Hy-jtbe'? Spec to warn their' relative's of fbV fate '-that' must wait them if they to- g"o to California, and redftested that their distresses might be made. as public as possible, 1 in order to deter others from risking'their lives in.ad.ventures'tothat part of the" world. So much j were the people who went there from Sydney changed in their appearance that scarcely one in twenty could be recognised. Complaints from the interior were of course not common, but the communication had been materially broken up. Prices of all commodities had risen rapidly, not from scarcity, but principally from speculation and want of convey* ance. Labourers were at the port offering their services at very' reduced rates, and 6ne of our informants saw dozens of doctors, lawyers, and others of learned professions, so miserable that they were glad 'to work as carpenters* labourers, and were staggering under shoulder loads of planking at the numerous erections in the city, while several of them, the doctor of the Star of China among others, were employed as watermen on the harbour, and thankful for that means of procuring a living. So great has been the anxiety of the wives or widows and relations of parties in California to obtain the slightest information regarding them, that while we were present with one of the recent arrivals the house was thronged with numerous anxious inquirers, to whom the slightest 5 intelligence of their friends being in life was nearly the whole amount of news that could be given. The inquiries were numerous, and this stream of applicants had been kept up during Thursday even till after midnight. (The writer here gives notices of several persons who had left Sydney for California, and then continues) : — When the Inchinnan arrived, the first sight that met the passengers on landing were the dead bodies of men lying at the water's edge in a state of decomposition, unclaimed and unnoticed : and in the streets of San Francisco a man was lying dead, exposed to the view of every passer by. The tents presented fearful scenes. In corners, and boxed up betwixt packages of luggage, which served to shield the emaciated bodies of ague patients , were seen unfortunate victims of that disease wrapt up in blankets, their teeth chattering, their limbs shivering, and their countenances distorted by disease. Despair had silenced their calls for assistance, which could not be rendered them, and resignation to the approach of death only permitted them to solicit as a dying favour that thoughtless emigration from New South Wales should be discouraged by a detail of their individual misfortunes. The lodging houses were in a dreadful state ; one hundred and fifty sleepers were thronged into one apartment, and there lay mingled the healthy and diseased, men of all nations and tongues, the once exalted among the most debased, the filthy and the clean in one indiscriminate mass. Returned miners, enfeebled by fever, were seen, careless of their dreadful fate, with not the slightest regard to persoual cleanliness, and from their inability to help themselves, and the want of others to assist them, in many instances they were covered by crawling lice, and shockingly disgusting. Some of our informants were witnesses to some of these briefly-detailed scenes ; but each of them had seen so many hardships that it is impossible we can do more than speak of them generally, as they are corrol orative of the intelligence received by private letters. There was employment for carpenters, but even this was unsteady. The price of bread varied ! fresh loaves could not be had at less than Is. 6d. per loaf of 240z., and bread of that weight, but sour and unwholesome, was hawked at 20 cents. Many vesels were lying in harbour, some of them unclaimed and totally deserted ; others were being daily seized, and sold after being condemned by the customs on charges of smuggling ; a large barque was sold for one thousand eight hundred an 1 fifty dollars. The steamers to Panama were crowded with return passengers to the American States, and berths sold at a premium, so great was the disposition to get away. Upwards of 40,000 letters had accumulated and were lying unsorted at the post-office, the approach to which the day previous to making up the. Slates mail was only acquired by parties sending letters, keeping in rank four abreast and advancing in regular order," the slightest infringement of the rule causing great disorder- and immediate expulsion of the offender. The very name of Sydney was disliked ; no man who hailed from it could get a job of work, so thoroughly bad the abomination of canvictism got possession of the Americans and Island men,, and attempts were making to bring the subject before the Senate, in order to prohibit the debarkation of " the murder men pf Botany Bay." . Our readers

will not be surprised to. learn that a conspicuous emigrant' of the class, alluded: to is the alleged'incendiary at tbe dreadful conflagration at San Francisco ; .hg had with others, it is Reported) made a successful rush into a gam-* • filing sbopj and in the. general scramble a vast '■ qqatuiiy ofgjoldhad disappeared, which, it was said,, he was desiious ,to get an opportunity of transferring: along' with himself to New South Wales. He did not succeed in getting a shijjj but may be looked for among thVearly arrivals from that quarter. /•' A few of our informants were only »hout thirty days at the port, and some of them were so much disgusted that they thought every day they were detained was as lojig as a month. Curses loud and deep were expressed against a charterer of some vessels who had been in California, and duped tbe emigrants from this quarter by his misrepresentations. He had been entrusted with hundreds of letters, which it has since turned out he has never delivered, and the consequences will be dreadful. Wives left here do not know whether their husbands in California wish them to go to them ; while husbands are returning to-Sydney wbosif wives have gone in the vain hope of meeting them in San Francisco and numbers are already widows and fatherless who may never learn^ the fate of their relatives, the post affording scarcely a hope of communicating with friends. We have written thus far without comment) in order that our readers may see the blackest side of the story, and judge for. themselves. It is right to say. that the parties had never before been in a new settlement or encountered greater, hardships than were to be met with here, and their expectations of comforts, in* eluding vegetables, one of the last supplied necessaries of new settlements, were unwarranted and vague, and show the folly of people running emigration mad without calculating the cost. The expectation of a severe winter approaching has been realised, and death had already prostrated a few of the victims which avarice, folly, and improvidence had thrown in his way ; the calamities of tbe dreaded rainy season were, it was feared, about to set in, and another month's later intelligence would carry dismal tidings from San Francisco. When the William Melville left, labourers were getting from five to seven dollars per day; carpenters, bricklayers, and sawyers, twelve to fourteen dollars,' with abundance of employment at a distance from the town. Good board and lodging on board ship was procured at ten dollars a week ; seamen's wages were £10 a, mo nth by that vessel ; a Chinese servant was offered 200 dollars a month at Monterey, and 150 at San Francisco. The number of persons estimated at the diggings was 120,000, and their average receipts say about five dollars a day ; the freight of flour to Sacremento city was «£8 per ton, and the inland carriage added greatly to the market price. The fiist adventurers from this quarter may have gone unprepared, but the repeated authentic intelligence published in this paper from time to time, has deprived others of au excuse on the score of ignorance, and we are just reminded by a gentleman who arrived by the William Melville, at Hobart Town, now here, that parties like him wbo are determined on proceeding will arrive after the rainy season is over. The first part of the present statement has been shown to a respectable passenger by the Spec, Mr. Richard White, baker in Sussex-street, and the latter part, reaching up to the date of the William Melville's departure, to Mr. Parkei, who arrived by that vessel by way of Hobart Town, and both have verified tbe correctness of our information, which is presented to the public without taking from, or adding to, what we have heard from the various sources to which we have applied for it. We bave been favoured with, the perusal of a private letter Irom Mr. P. M'Mahon, of Sydney, from which we make the following extracts :—: — " 1 have been afflicted with diarrhoea ; no one who comes here escapes it. Some say it is the fault of the water, which I believe. This is a very unhealthy climate, all through the heavy fogs and bad water. There qre few days but you will see one or two lying dead in a place called the Happy Valley, which is a beach of sand similar to that from Rose Bay to Watson's Bay. There are about 1500 tents upon it ; and as for the town, it is the size of the South Head and the paddock road, with all wooden buildings, and the greater part are frames covered with canvas. As for the harbour, it is a fine one; the tide runs at eight knots and a half an hour. There are very strange laws here ; they call them Lynch Law. If a man thieves, the lug is cut off ; tbe second offence, the other is cut ; the third offence, he is hung to a tree, or shot like a dog. I hope none of ray friends in Sydney will come here who can get a living in Sydney, for the thoughts of gold-finding decoys many to their ruin. There is certainly gold to be found, but a great deal of slavery for it. Some people go to the mines, and dig away for three mon»bs f and do not make £3; others may be luckyi«nd

get £300. It is all luck on happening on a good spot. You may believe what I aay ; there are some hundreds lying at the mines not able to work, being ill of dysentery. The wages for labouring men are from five to six dollars a day ; carpenters, ten to eleven dollars ; blacksmiths, ten dollars. No tailors, or nailors, or shoemakers, or stonemasons, or clerks, or bakers, are wanted. It is of no use any one speculating or fetching goods of any description. You can buy them cheaper here than in Sydney ; and fire-arms are quite as cheap. If a man boards himself he will have to pay fourteen dollars at the very least. A 21b. loaf is Is. English ; beef is 9d. per Ib. ; mutton, Is. ; sausages, 4s. per lb. ; fish, 4s. per lb. ; butter, 4s. per lb. ; milk, 4s. a bottle ; grog, Is. a glass ; ale, ditto, and 4s. a bottle. So that if a man is in good health, and contented with a little, it is far better to put up with it than come to California. If a man earns five or six dollars a day, it takes three and a half dollars for him to live comfortable. In two years, if I hava my health, you will see me again in Sydney. Mother is getting £4 a week as cook, &c, to wait on four gentlemen, but it is only for a month. lam cook at a restaurant, at 130 dollars a month and victuals. James O'Hare is working labouring work, and W. Nowland, a baker, who lived in Market Street, is a labourer. O'Hare is living in a small room, and pays fifty dollars a month. I would not advise any of my friends to come here. I am sorry to say James Robinson, the blacksmith, died on the passage. There are four or five hundred ships lying in the harbour for want of men. Our captain went to sea with one man and four boys to work a barque ! This is the Devil's hole for gambling ; in every public house you will see them betting on what they call monte cards ; it is a Spanish name, and you wonld see £1000, in gold and silver, on the table at once. Washing is five dollars a dozen ; flour and salt beef are Cheap, and so are tea and sugar."

[From the S. M. Herald.} San Francisco, Dec. 29. — It is surprising how any owners who value their vessels will send them to this place, the risk and difficulty of getting them away being so fearfully great. The men in most instances desert their vessels immediately, often refusing even to furl the sails after dropping anchor. Still the number of vessels in harbour has been reduced by about a hundred. There are now about three huqdred in port, ot all sizes' and of all nations ; about a month since there were about four hundred. The Custom house regulations during a long time were very bad; but a new collector having arrived, the severe laws of the United States have lately been most strictly enforced, and immense seizures made, particularly of spirits and bottled beer. Spirits of all kinds, in bottle, are prohibited, and beer, in packages less than six dozen ; all imported, is seizable. French, Dutch, and Hamburgh vessels have suffered greatly ; but the Sydney craft more in proportion than any, scarcely one having escaped entirely. The collector has no small inducement to make seizures, one-half being his perquisite. His last week's work in this way will have brought him in probably twenty thousand dollars, or about four thousand pounds. The repeal of the .navigation law is expected to take effect from the first proximo ; but the Collector of Customs says he shall not relax until he receives official instructions to do so. The port charges, now very heavy, will then be reduced and the restrictions on British shipping reduced. — Herald's own Correspondent.