The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-08 00:00:00

we meg ziaseeabky lase that the manic
will either ad hi &hum, or be rodeo-
tits than Wealth. Beam will be no
,
raising b • extravagant supply of the precious
uphalu %. fall le pries, it Will !exchange for !Res,
and that is ;it will disturb existing arrangements,
and materially tench rents and fixed homes, while
any good resalting is problematicaL Aod it ought to
be observed, as another reason against such an ex-
travagant hypothesis as that put forth, that the
known returns of the mists of Spanish America,
esteemed greater than the earth had ever before
yielded from her capacious breast, comprised both
gold and silver. If we suppose there are sow 5,000 men
in the Sacramento washing gold, each of whom obtains
two pound. sterling a day, set forth as the minimum,
the whole would collect 10,0001. a-day—two hundred
pounds weight, or 3,000,0001. a•year, equivalent to
the whole yielding, of the Russian mines; and all
this without the labour, skill, capital, and machinery
necessary in precarious mining operations. And here,
be it observed, is the marvel; nature for the first time
known to men, pours from her lap riches abun-
diunly, and, in a kindly mood, gives wealth to
those who sequin it not according to her ancient
decree—industry, or the sweat of the brow.
So that if for a moment we can fancy the barren val-
leys of California giving up half-an-ounce of virgin
gold to each restless and wandering adventurer every
day, thus pouring into the world an enormous stream
of that which is now considered true wealth, some-
thing. among the few things of earth esteemed of
genuine intrinsic value, we must undo all experience,
and believe nature has turned over a new leaf in her
great book. The question is not whether she acts
thus bountifully now, as she has done often before,
only to deceive and betray, but whether she
will continue so to act ; in a word, whe-
ther the sources are not merely superficial as
well as irregular. But allowing for exaggeration
in the description of the golden sands, there is this
peculisrity,that where gold is found it will at least do
more than repay the outlay of time and labour,
which has seldom or ever been the case in working
mines. "It is probable," says JACOB, on the Precious
Metals," that in all ages those metals have cost more
in their production than their value ever repaid."
And the same writer observes that even the most pro-
mising mines declined in produce, the celebrated Pe-
ruvian mines in the rich district of Potosi yielding
after a time not a third of their original produce. Bat
then the mines of Spanish America were, and now are,
worked with labour, and at great expense, and their
precious products therefore came gradually into
Europe ; whereas, if our Californian intelligence be
correct, the probability is, the supply will be not only
great but sudden, and the effect so much the greater.
The Mexican mines, which, perhaps, on the whole,
were the most rich and permanent, yielded, accord-
ing to HUMBOLDT, the large sum of 364,847,7391. in
110 year, at the average rate of 3,316,7061. per
annum. And JACOB (p. 167) gives the following
table :

Spanish America £706,461,434
Portuguese America
£788,461,414
or an annual product from all the mines of 7,148,7871.,
namely, of gold and.ailver.
It is manifest, then, that a sudden supply of even six
millions a year, instead of sixty, would produce a mate-
rial effect oa the price of gold all over the world, sup-
posing the prevent supply to be kept up from other
quarters. But we think, judging from experience,
that nothing like six millions annually will flow from
the valleys of California.

IT has often been remarked that the cholera has
made its first attacks on the population of a city or
densely peopled district at the commencement of
winter, and that after the first attacks it slumbered
or smouldered, giving signs merely of inactive life
throughout the winter, but awakening with the re-
turn of spring to its intense and malicious influence.
This possibly would have been the case at present
with us, had not the wandering virus of the disease
found a locality and a little population so apt for its
reception and development, that it burst forth at
once to decimate the Pauper Infant School at Tooting.
We have heard many complaints of Westminster
sewers and city drainage, too many of them founded
in truth. But the ho-rible neglect of health and
decency consisting of the collection and detention of
filth and ordure is far more flagrant in the tuburbs of
London and the adjoining villages than in the most
intricate labyrinths of our town streets. It is to those
very villages and suburban abodes that the inhabitants
of this great city fly for health, and as yet, as far as
security from nuisance goes, we verily believe that we
are safer in St. Mary-axe from epidemy and
cholera, than up the Hampstead-road or amongst the
Surrey hills. The higher and more open the locality,
the less care is thought necessary. And with all our
sanitary fuse, the filth of Jassy or Bucharest at the
breaking up of the ice is scarcely greater than
that of our suburban cesepools and drain-ditches.
There is no law, no authority in these districts, as
any one may know who has a complaint to make,
even of nuisances threatening life. No matter what
the urgency or gravity of the case, the complainant
will find himself bandied from post to pillar, and from
parish to sanitary officer, with authority doubtful, and
good will non•extant lhe parish authorities of such
wealthy but overtaxed districts are anxious, princi-
pally for economy, and very naturally so. The only
remedy for abuse is a lawsuit, and six months may
be spent, with a proportionate expenditure, in disco-
vering who are the parties to be prosecuted.
We believe it was Leipsig wl,o-e suburbs and adja-
cent villages were ravaged in the great year of cho-
lera, whilst the town escaped unhurt. Similar re-
sults here would not surprise us. Journals talk
of the impurity of the Thames ; whilst there is 1
no miasma from its ebb or flow to be compared with
the at. rich which frequently arrests and almost knocks
down the Sunday wanderer or the civic dwellers
amidst suburban fields acid roads.

The Tooting Pauper Infant Asylum is a strong case
in point. The metropolitan board of guardians com-
miserated the state of the infant poor, condemned
to pine in the close walls of a London poor-house.
They forthwith make an effort and send them to the
country for health and air. And the poor children
find a summary species of disease and death which
they would have escaped under the smoke and shade
of metropolitan chimneys.
The fifteen hundred children were, it seems, planted
on the brink of an immense jakes, not only upon
that formed by the drainage of their own eirablish-
ment, which was carefully and cautiously conducted
without the walls, but allowed to stagnate imme-
diately on the other side of them : but that immense
cluster of buildings called the Surrey Lunatic Asylum
had carefully conveyed its offscourings to the vi-
cinity of the rural refuge of the metropolitan
poor. Cholera, prowling about to see whom
it might devour, soon espied a place so apt even for
its winter quarters, straibht pitched its camp in the
Tooting establishment, and went actively to its work
of destruction. One-fifth of the number of children
have been attacked, and we perceive by the accounts
how large a proportion of the attacks have proved
fatal. _ _

e have seen nothing calculated to inculpate the
muter of this pauper establishment. Four•and-
sixpence a week seems a small allowance for
food, clothes, and lodging, but no complaints
of ill health or suffering were previously made.
And the 121. or 131. a year for each child, small as
may be its provision, falls still heavy on the rate-
payers. So much so indeed, that we wonder pauper
boys and girls verging on the age when they might
be so useful in the colonies as shepherds or as ser
vents, are not sent their, instead of vegetating until
fifteen at Tooting. Assuredly there would be eco-
nomy in sending them to Canada or the Cape, or even
to Sydney, where bett-r sustenance than gruel would
be bestowed on their growing frames, and more hardy
and useful habits communicated to boys of thirteen.
Benevolent men have been successful in procuring
this bettered fate for the children of crime : why
should it be denied to the orphans of the industrious
poor ?