not disposed to persevere. Experience has
shown, that a large number of men who
rush upon the gold field to pick up a fortune,
like all sanguine people, take up quickly with
despair, and come away after a few weeks of
bad success. Of the large number of people
who will be induced by their gold to emigrate
into the Australian colonies, many will try the
gold fields and abandon them, many will find
their health or their acquired habits unsuited
to the rough work of the diggings, and the
" Home of the Gold Miners " — as one sees it
advertised in Sydney papers, " weighing only
twelve pounds — nine feet square by eight feet
high, for thirty-five shillings." Such men
and others will be more ready to spread about
the towns and through the pastures. In a
year or two there will be in Australia labour
willing to employ itself as readily upon the
fields as upon the gold, while the work will
proceed at the gold fields steadily enough.

The contrast is very great between the
orderly behaviour at the gold fields in
Australia, and the disorders of California. There
are few fields, we are told, at which a miner
might not have his wife and family; if he
could provide accommodation for them, they
would be as safe, and meet with just as much
respect as if they lived in their own house in
town. A clergyman, quitting the Turon
settlement, publicly returns his " sincere
thanks to the commissioners of the Turon,
and to the mining population in general, for
the many acts of kindness which he
experienced during his short residence among
them. He considers it his duty," he says,
"thus publicly to state, not only his own personal obligations, but also the pleasure which
he felt in witnessing the general desire of all
classes to promote the object of his mission,
and to profit by his humble labours ; and
if," he says, " he were to judge from their
orderly conduct, and from the earnest attention
and apparent devotion with which they all
joined in the religious services of the sabbath,
he could not help forming a very favourable
opinion of the miners. It cannot be denied
that the great majority are sober, industrious,
and well-disposed."

The file of a Sydney daily paper since the
commencement of gold discoveries, is quite a
study for philosophers. Wonderful tales of
treasures brought to town, condensed into the
weekly " Gold Circular," are waited upon by
an array of light, social absurdities, and
supported by an admirable body of sound human
feeling. In one week, for example, twenty-five
thousand pounds' worth of gold has come
to town, against which uprises a wholesale
and retail grocer, who advertises that " Economy
is a sure road to a Gold Field," and
requests the public to look rather to his Teas
and Coffees. Then our English eyes do,
indeed, dwell a little on his list, when we
remember our own taxes, and see that the gold
diggers may buy gunpowder tea at two
shillings a pound, and sugar at twopence.
No wonder that they make their tea in
kettles.

The next weekly " Gold Circular " tells of
fifteen thousand pounds' worth that has come
in by Government escort — an unpopular,
because a dear conveyance, the charge being
one per cent.; and, as for the gold privately
transmitted, adds the Circular, " When we
know of one man bringing down a thousand
ounces in a horse-collar, it is impossible to
state correctly what may come into town."
On the same day, a draper declares that he
is determined to sell ten thousand pounds'
worth of haberdashery at an alarming sacrifice,
"it being perfectly evident that at the present
time it is the only means by which a trade
can be done," —and so on. In the same paper
there is advertised Number One of a new
periodical, to be called " The Golden Age;"
and another bookseller announces as " The
only readable book ever published in Australia,
' The Gold Calculator; or, Diggers' and
Dealers' Ready Reckoner.' " That being the
humour of Australian authors, an Australian
musician offers, in the same good cause, " The
Ophir Schottische; " while the public is in
various places strongly recommended to buy
pumps and cradles.

In another paper, we meet with an
intelligent calculation of the advantages that
will be derived by the Australian colonies,
from the immigration caused by gold. Among
these, it is remembered that more mouths
will want more mutton, and pay to the now
troubled agriculturists better price for
carcases, that hitherto have only been available
for tallow. In this calculation, we meet with an
item that again falls curiously on our English
ears:— " The consumption of meat at Sydney
is at the rate of about three hundred and
thirty pounds per head per annum; that of
the bush much more, as there is a small
proportion of children, and the adults have,
at least, five hundred and twenty pounds per
annum, and a large proportion from six
hundred to seven hundred and twenty pounds."

Then we come upon a narrative of the
attempts that have been made to put down
sly-grog-men at the gold-fields. " I went
out," says the writer, " one or two nights with
the Commissioners on the Turon, and after
blundering about all night among deep pits
and high banks, crossing a flooded river
half-a-dozen times on slippery logs, I came to the
conclusion that to be out of bed on any such
errand, was all vanity and vexation of spirit.
We knew that we were within a few yards of
the grog-shop; saw drunken men lying about,
but everything was perfectly quiet; not a
move, nor a sound, except the monotonous
declaration of a drunken fellow, that — he was
a man." Perhaps he was sober enough to
feel that he incurred some risk of being taken
for a beast.

In another paper we are told of the first
passage of " the gold coach " through a quiet
village, and of the consequent defection of the