CALIFORNIAN EXTRACTS. THE PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE COUNTRY.
(From the Daily Journal of Commerce, Sept. 6.] We are neither disposed to be a croaker nor to despair of the ultimate prosperity and greatness of California. But intelligence on which we can rely confidentially, has reached us respecting the real state of affairs in the interior, which leads us, even against our will, to form evil forebodings as to the probable state and prospects of the country, during the approaching winter. We have just been conversing with two gentlemen of character anJ veracity, with whom we are acquainted, and who bave no sinister motive or prejudice lor what they say ; and, though reluctantly, still when pushed and cross-examined on the subject, they candidly confess, that life and property are not safe in the mines ; that murders and robberies are of daily occurrence ; that men known to have gold are frequently disappearing ; that the rife suspicion in most eases, and the subsequent circumstantial evidence in all, seems to justify the conclusion, that foul play and secret murders are extensively practised. Throughout the diggings there are thousands of desperate and disappointed men, who on finding that theit hopes of sudden fortune are blighted, and that a bare subsistence is not so easily realized, have resolved to stand at nothing in order to possess themselves of the means either of gratifying their vices, or of leaving the country before the winter sets in. Men are being put aside, either by assassination or by open violence, and the perpetrators after providing themselves with some of their neighbours' horses, get out of the way with celerity befitting the emergency. As for Mexicans and other foreigners, their lives are made little account of by the ruffians who are at work on this game of rapine and blood, and when the intended victims try to escape from the mines with what they have got, and turn their faces homeward, they are almost invariably pursued by bands of confederate robbers, and either quietly plundered, or slaughtered on the road. This deplorable state of affairs, instead of abating towards the winter, will obviously become worse. Thousands of infatuated dupes will yet have to drink the dregs of the bitter cup, and then find themselves thrown upon the ultimate resources and criminal expedients of desperate and unscrupulous men. The mania has been overdone, and a terrible reaction is at hand, Wfi are on the eve of a crisis no less deplorable, whether it come in the shape of a collapse or an explosion. When thousands shall be adrift in the interior, with no hope of gaining a subsistence but by violence or their wits, we need not enter into details to depict the fearful aspect and condition of society throughout the country at large. The despondent and disappointed, together ! with the loose and reckless elements of soci-
ety, will fall back upon the towns, and think it no robbery to help themselves to the property of their more fortunate neighbours, and if resisted they have no alternative before them, between death either by starvation or violence, on the one hand, and the acquisition of money at all hazards to take themselves away, on the other. When two or three hundred thieves only are to be "dealt with, society can protect itself by means of police vigilance and a rigorous administration of the law, but when necessity drives thousands to desperate shifts for selfpreservation, the sympathy of numbers and of common interest and calamity is very apt to make men look with wolfish eyes on private property, and to develope some plan of a formidable confederacy for criminal and agrarian purposes. All this is in keeping with human nature ; and it is folly to close our eyes to the truth of the foreboding. What is there to obviate this state of things, or prevent so lamentable and destructive a result? Neither police forces, nor trained bands of civic guards, aided by the paltry detachment of soldiers within our reach, could save San Francisco from rapine and plunder, from being sacked and destroyed by an army of desperadoes, united and cemented together in an agrarian confederacy and bound by the strong tie of common interest and danger, and justifying their acts on the plea of necessity and self-preser-vation — the former of which has no law, and the latter is the first law of nature. Delusion has been practised, and thousands are now the dupes of the infatuation so universally produced. But when it comes to a question of life or death, and so many in the same predicament unite to urge and countenance the scheme, an agrarian war, with indiscriminate rapine and plunder if imperfectly resisted, is by no means an improbable result to be apprehended from so anomalous and desperate a state of affairs. Already we find robberies becoming rife in San Francisco, and it is not safe to walk unarmed through the city by night. If this be the case even now, when comparatively few have as yet found their way back from the mines, what may we not expect when thousands will be flocking down upon us to escape the privations of winter, and thousands more shall at the same time be arriving too late to reach the diggings, or to do any good for themselves even if they were there ! San Francisco cannot supply all the unemployed with work, even at the price of bare subsistence. Is it likely that a few thousands or even hundreds of starving and desperate men will stand at trifles to supply their wants, or suffer themselves to perish like cattle in our streets ? No, certainly not, no man can expect it, — When society fails to supply the means of preserving life, its bonds are soon rent asunder, and its obligations are at an end, and unless the governmental power be overwhelming, anarchy and rapine must supervene. Should any such terrific crisis as this seem to be developing in our social state towards the approaching winter, nothing but free passages out of the country will get rid of the dangerous elements, which if suffered to remain without relief, until common distress and despair unite them, it would be difficult to suppress and even if subdued at the expense of blood, would doubtless be avenged by the destruction of the city. Either a free passage out of the country, or else a large expenditure of money on public and private improvements through all the towns and cities of the State, can alone prevent the social evils we apprehend. The mines, why they are driving thousands every day to despondency and death, or else to madness and despair. And if a merciful Providence interpose not to aid the efforts of human prudence and benevolence, a self-inflict-ed curse and dire calamity will soon overtake this devoted community. May Heaven grant that our forebodings may never be realized ; but that the clouds that lower upon our heads may pass away without bursting, and leave us unscathed by the lightning of so fearful a convulsion.
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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 562, 21 December 1850, Page 4
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1,178CALIFORNIAN EXTRACTS. THE PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE COUNTRY. New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 562, 21 December 1850, Page 4
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