The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-18 00:00:00

LIFE IN CALIFORNIA AND AUSTRALIA.

We fear our American kinsmen have never
thoroughly forgiven us the discovery of gold in i
Australia. From the day Mr. Sutter picked up
his grains of the magic metal in the race of his
mill, and created California, the growth and pro-
gress of that State somehow became only another
proof of the superiority of " democratic institu-
tions," an additional triumph of democratic prin-
ciples, a glory naturally springing from the Re-
publican system, and a rebuke and humiliation to
every other form of government on the face of the
earth. But there is always peril in enormous good
luck, and precisely when it is at the highest point
a Nemesis lies in wait for men and nations. The
Americans did not propitiate the envious Destinies
by any particular humility at this wonderful period
of their fortune. In every way they made the
most of it, and. glorified themselves and the Re-
pulic as having gone ahead of the universe at a
pace that left the dozy and decrepit States of
Europe nowhere. So the Destinies, always easily
provoked, administered a corrective, and restored
the balance on the side of Monarchy. Gold was
suddenly turned up to the light in an English
colony, and California found a rival on a territory
in allegiance to the English Crown. The newest
and brightest star of the Republic—the golden
radiance of thegalaxy—was eclipsed; the Britishers
had their gold fields also, with no " democratic in-
stitutions" to account for the phenomenon. Even
in some of the details of the two discoveries there
was a kind of identity : Hargreaves pairs off in
history with Sutter ; Melbourne became a very
vigorous reproduction of San Francisco ; Monarchy
fairly trumped the best card of the Republican
hand ; and the Old World was not so completely
distanced after all.
Not that California has ceased to be what it
promised ; it has only ceased to stand alone and
unparalleled. This is the fact which we think the
Americans do not quite forget when they draw
comparisons between the social state of their own
gold fields and those of Australia. We published
not long ago an extract from a New York contem-
porary, who " in the rise and progress of California
and Australia" saw " a fair opportunity of com-
paring the colonial system of Great Britain and the
working of democratic institutions." Often as it
is done, nothing is more difficult to do impartially
than to compare ourselves with others. A resolute
metaphysician may accomplish it, but resolute me-
taphysicians are rare. National comparisons are
made under a similar difficulty, and we may gene-
rally distrust them. To arrive at the truth, we do
not recognise the necessity of seeing ourselves ex-
actly as others see us ; the vision may be defective
or the glasses coloured. The medium is a little
tinged in the present case. After describing the
lawless condition of California during the early
period of its history—a condition much worse than
that of Australia at any time—our American con-
temporary paints its present orderly and prosper-
ous state, in which we should heartily rejoice if
the last letters of our correspondenb at San Fran-
cisco, and several preceding, did not excite mis-
givings as to the perfect correctness of some parts
of the picture. Thus the New York paper says :
—" Such is now the respect for law that life and
property are about as safe in California as in any
other State of the Union." There must be a large
qualification in the " about," if this is true. One
of the last letters of our correspondent at San
Francisco reports 20 cases of murder during the
month of June, and 219 for the half-year ; in the
same period 24 men are returned as having been
" hung by the mob ;" while legality and the Sheriff
succeeded in doing the same justice only on two.
The causes that produce all these murders ap-
pear "ludicrously trivial," and this recklessness
of life is attributed to the " universal and cowardly
practice of carrying revi,lvers." Again, California,
it is said (unlike Australia), " has no overbearing
officials scattered over the gold fields, whose object
it is to harass the miner, and who apparently care
for nothing save to gather a monthly tax." But a
collector may do worse than harass a miner—he
may shoot him ; in this same month of June one
Californian collector "killed" a Mexican miner at
Tuttletown ; and another both " shot and killed"'
three Chinamen in Mariposa county. These four
murders were perpetrated with the ever-handy re-
volver, on a slight resistance to the payment of the
tax. Passing by the loss of life in private brawls,
and the prevalence of " rowdyism, street fights,
and "difficulties" in San Francisco, in which " po-
liticians, lawyers, and merchants " figure exten-
sively, and speaking only of the gold fields, it ap-
pears to us that " democratic institutions" do not
necessarily include either an efficient police or
very scrupulous tax-collectors. The Australian
type of both does not suffer in the comparison.
The last letter of our correspondent exhibits a
Sheriff quite as decided in his mode of proceeding
as the collector. He was conveying two prisoners
to Mariposa when, a "difficulty" occurring with

them by the way, "he shot one and hanged the
other ;" but this officer had a previous reputation
for nerve and despatch in business. The day he
was "on the road to Stockton to be married" he
made a slight detour, fought a duel with rifles, and
having settled this little affair calmly pursued his
journey, and concluded the other it may be hoped
as satisfactorily. Another incident of Californian
life, given in the same letter, would have been
wildly desperate but for the turn that makes
it almost ludicrous. A poor Frenchman,
named Briant, believing himself swindled by a
San Francisco broker, walked into his office with a
carpet bag in his hand, filled with gunpowder, and
a cigar in his mouth ; he quietly informed the
broker (and his two friends) that he meant to blow
up them and the house together. They thought he
was joking, and kept their places ; but the man was
in earnest ; he threw his burning cigar into the
bag, and the ground floor was nearly blown to
pieces ; yet no one was seriously hurt ! The French-
man himself was the most severely burnt ; the
two visitors were injured ; but the broker, against
whom the improvised internal machine was di-
rected, escaped unhurt. The next day the whole
affair was talked of "as a good joke," and it is
supposed no jury will convict a man who merely
meant to assassinate a " money-lender," the class
being unpopular, especially if they venture to hold
a mortgage as a material guarantee for advances.
The accounts of the deadly feuds between the Ame-
ricans and the Mexicans or Spaniards, as they are
called, are confused. There appear to have been
atrocities on both sides, but the indiscriminate
shootings and not very discriminating hangings by
the Americans during an " excitement" prove that
no organisation, civil or military, exists that can
be called on to repress outrage; and, as our corre-
spondent says, "the people always take the law jute
their own hands on tho occurrence of these emer-
gencies." This is not the case in our gold celn-
nies. We felt bound thus to correct one or
intwo features rather too favourably touched
the American portrait of Californian so-
ciety. As the description of Australia—like all
the descriptions of that country wo have seen—
deals as much with what it might be and is
not as with what it is, we have nothing to
object to it. We hope every anticipation of
its future may be realised. The worse than
a.bsurd land regulations, which fetter every
Y movement, we have often denounced,bealtb
and fully admit theyofcontrast most unfavourably
'of population to toCalifornia found an open
with the freer system
rushthe United States. The
ehroimvismioendsiataelcytel
field, to which the liberalßrviteiri: applied';
when other parts of the Unionl
when the torrent of
into Victoria, the people 'f
emigration poured
the whole find, though in oiled, to their dismay,
sbprimitive state of
wildem It 32 already possessed
more truly lords of the land
tTbasnome 600 men,
Europe ; and, as they virtually held thaeny class
in
power as well as the soil, they made governing
purchase and
settlement producing a state
as difficult as possible,
of society which an Englishman who has not seen
it, still less an American,_ can hardly conceive.
There is a large demand for land, and a limitless
would meet the demand ten times
supply that .
is extravagant from
over ; yet the price
the local the
arti-
ficially created scarcity, Government
extort t - all it can as the
having been permitted to ex
great land-jObber between the squatters it has
elevated into a powerful class end the general '
com-
munity. Can our readers imagine sea water selling
on Brighton beach at a guinea a pint ? It is
scarcely an exaggerated illustration both of the
I supply of land in Australia and the artificial price
the regulations, as administered by the colonial
government, have produced. We make this qua-
lification because the regulations themselves "gave
the local Executive by which much of the mischief
\might have been prevented--powers
which that
authority has obstinately refused to, exercise till a
very recent period, and then only "imperfectly. But
act into
we must correct an error of f
which the
New York paper has fallen,since brave one.
None of the abuses
of the: it is a
colonial Government
have been countenancedthe profit, of the
mother country. The colon for
to the Imperial revenue, excyepctoutritbutes nothing
as America itself may be said into do same
walr
indirect result of the increase of commerce so—by .the
consideration for the welfare of the colon has 'h every
been sacrificed that " the coffers of file aisi not
Government might be filled." W© have not even
that bad excuse for tolerating such a system;
though it would, at least, make our policy intelli-
gible.e All the revenues raised in the colony have
been spent in it, or for it, by the local
authorities,
and how they have been spent we 'nay hereafler 1
littreveCasion-th itquite.—Thies, - • .. - •