THE VICTORIA GOLD FIELDS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 652, 1 November 1851, Page 3

THE VICTORIA GOLD FIELDS.

[From the Sydney Morning Herald, October 14.] By the Woodstock which arrived here yesterday from Port Phillip, after a rapid passage of four days, we have received Melbourne papers to the 7th instant. The gold mania was, if possible, increasing. The following extracts exhibit the progress and prospects of the mining operations :— The Melbourne Daily News of the 7th, says that “ official intelligence has been received direct from the diggings, confirming and exceeding all that we have before laid before our readers ; indeed of so startling a character, that we dare not trust ourselves to detail the intelligence which has reached us.”

And in another paper we find the following statement:—“We inspected three letters received on Saturday from the mines, fully corroborating the most extravagant accounts vet received. We take the following extract from one, the writer of which is a gentleman of the highest integrity. ‘ You, or any man who has a pair af arms to work with, are mad to remain in Melbourne. I fully expected you up here before this time. You are toiling away like a galley slave to make a few pounds in the year, while we are turning it up here some in twenty ounces and some in twenty pounds daily. Unless you were on the spot it is perfectly impossible that you could have any idea of the extraordinary, the maddeningly exciting prosperity of the multitude. And such a ’ mob’ too, fellows that were working for twenty shillings a week, are now in possession of fortunes in a few days, some in a few hours, —many of the lowest class as well as of the best have acquired an independence that they never could have accomplished under years of toil by any other pursuit. The usual consequences are beginning to show themselves. The ore is beginning to lose its value in their eyes, and I saw one fellow yesterday give an ounce of gold for about a quarter of a fig of tobacco ! It is wonderfully abundant, and every man who will work is doing wonders. Wages in Melbourne will inevitably be monstrously high, and even that won’t answer. I conscientiously assert that when the truth is known in Melbourne (and it is too extraor-. dinary to be believed at first) that not one servant, or indee ( d anything in the shape of a man, will be left to refuse au engagement. An old California miner, ‘as cute as a coon,’ a fellow that would pick the gold out of your teeth, (if stuffed by a certain Melbourne dentist,) tells me that the Sierra Nevada at California ‘ is nothing, no how,’ to this, and that if the Yankees knew of this ‘ crop’ they would pour in here like a swarm of bees—he has just come up, having received before he left Geelong, a cheque for £lBO, the produce of five days. You will recollect that about a month ago he had not money enough to buy fat for a flea. I am doing the trick, and intend to hold out until baked by the heat. L expect fever and disease of every kind will make their appearance amongst us, as the water is bad and grog is beginning to abound, but no apprehensions, whether of fever, ague, or even death itself will scare diggers from their work. I don’t wonder al it, for independence is truly 'the peace that passeth all understanding,’ in the eyes of most men.” The other communications are nearly in the same strain, and are quite enough to turn the the brain, or unhinge the equanimity of any Diogenes. The effect it has had in raising the price of flour is purely a fictitious one, because there is quite as much of that commodity now in the market as there was before the discovery of the diggings. The price of meat has risen from a very natural cause—the want of butchers to kill it. Rents have fallen. ”

It is sincerely to be hoped th it the following report which the Melbourne Daily News publishes is not true:—“A report reached town ■ yesterday that a case of Lynch law had been enacted at Ballarat, some man had been detected stealing gold, and was shot.” One of the Geelong newspapers, the Victoria Colonist, has yielded to the pressure of the times ; all hands having “sloped” for the diggings. A promise has been given to resume in two months, but this will, we think, be found to be only a genteel style of literary decease. The Geelong Advertiser announces in the same issue, that it will be compelled to diminish its size. A uew paper is to be started at Buninyong, entitled The Prospector and Buninyong Gazette. We take the following paragraph from the Melbourne Daily Neus of 4th instant:—“A report was industriously circulated through the city yesterday that intelligence had been received by the Government of the discovery of a gold field at Gipps’ Land, far surpassing in richness of produce the much prized Ballarat, and knowing that many rumours wild and purely fanciful are disseminated for the mischievous purpose of distracting and annoying the public mind, «e sent to the office of the Colonial Secretary to ascertain if it had any foundation in fact. We were informed in answer to our enquiries that no such communication had been received, but that it had been officially intimated by the Crown Land Commissioner for the district in which the Broken River is situated that a gold field had been discovere I at that place, at which a number of persons were actively employed, and that at his request a number of gold licenses had been by that day’s post transmitted to the Commissioner. We have heard from another source, not strictly official, but upon which we place as much dependence as if it were so, that the persons employed on this new gold field are earning per day from £lO to £2O each.”