The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-11 00:00:00

supererogation to adduce a single argument on
the subject. Suffice it to say, that while no less
than 1501. must be paid in stamp duties on the
articles and admission, a further sum of 121. is
charged every year to Metropolitan Attorneys,
while 81., or two-thirds of the former amount, is
levied on country practitioners. Thus, assuming
that the actual outlay for stamps were converted
into an annuity, for which 10 per cent. or 151.
per annum could easily be obtained, we would find
that each resident in London of the profession con-
tributes 271. per annum to the Exchequer before
he is enabled to exercise his industry, or gain a
single shilling by his own exertions. After that
he must pay income tax on his earnings at as high
a rate as the proprietor of 3 per Cent. Consols,
or of well-circumstanced real estate. So that if
we consider 3001. per annum as about the
average professional earnings of Solicitors—and
we believe that the amount is by no means over-
rated, we find that each man pays nearly 391.
per annum, or 13 per cent. on his precarious and
transitory income, while the more fortunate pos-
sessor of accumulated and realised property, which
he can transmit to his children and his children's
children, pays less than one-fourth of the amount
in proportion to his actual receipts.

It is no answer to state that Solicitors are
not worse off than others who are in like man-
ner compelled to take out licences—more or less
expensive—for liberty to pursue their trade or
calling. Every one of those charges on industry
are indefensible. They are worse than acts of
confiscation ; and can no more be justified than
the assault of the highwayman who rifles his vic-
tim's pocket because he has the power to do so.
Why should we complain if some Attorneys be
sharp practitioners. They merely reciprocate the
dealings -towards themselves by which they are
treated with gross and palpable injustice.

Naturally enough—in regard to the gok
diggings—something like serious reflection is
beginning to grow up at last out of our prolonged
excitement. People are becoming conscious by
little and little that it may be just as well to cal-
culate rather more than they have done hitherto
before yielding themselves up entirely to the
prevalent enthusiasm. There were several old
adages 'which were repeated with a sort of parrot-
cry monotony by the more wary, or less cre-
dulous, at the first outbreak of this mania,
in reference to the sand-washing of the Musray
and the Sacramento. Among these sayings, one
in particular was very often repeated, to the effect
that " all is not gold that glitters "—it being
imagined, we suppose, by the prophets of evil,
that there was exaggeration in the. accounts re-
ceived both from Australia and California. Ex-
perience has shown in a rather magnificent way
that the insinuation was signally erroneous.
So little of exaggeration was there in the intelli-
gence received in Europe almost simultaneously
from Melbourne and San Francisco, that it ap-
peared before long as though the riches opened up
to the world at once in both hemispheres were as
vast as they were accessible. Nuggets of solid
and pure gold weighing many pounds were proved
to have been actually discovered by some among
the more fortunate or more persevering adven-
turers. But in addition to these occasional God-
sends to the few—there was manifestly a continual
opportunity for the many commanding a steady
advance of good4ortune by an ordinary amount
of pertinacity in their researches. The precious
metal was found to be really abundant in quartz,
and in the slaty rocks of elder antiquity, but par-
ticularly in those known among geOlogists as the
Silurian. Besides this, it was seen to be un-
expectedly attainable in minute grains drifted
down in the current of the water-courses
together with the debris or gravel sucked down
into the valleys from the ancient veins or lodes
upon the mountains. Aware of all this, the
unemployed citizens of the old world made a sud-
den, but undoubtedly a very accountable, move-
ment in the way of rapid immigration. Thou-
sands upon thousands were shipped off in this
manner within the space of a few months—here
to Australia, there to California. Some of the
earliest adventurers actually commenced their
labours in washing for gold-dust with no better
implements than a clasp-knife and a basin !
Afterwards came others with shovels and wheel-
barrows ! Lastly came the more intelligent work-
men, with portable cradles, very ingeniously con-
structed ! Meanwhile, the mass of emigrants
being thus absorbed in the methodical toil of
dry-digging and wet-sifting—various others of
either a more sanguine or a more impatient tempera-
ment .were roving over the higher and less fre-
quented tracks, prying here and there for a species
of windfall in the shape of golden lumps, such as
have actually been sometimes lit upon, some of
them weighing above a hundred pounds, and
having a value of even so much as four thousand
sovereigns. The chance of this abrupt leap into
wealth, seemed better than the certainty of a
slower ascent into competence. It presented the
luxurious prospect of a royal road to profusion—
being a method altogether independent of the aid
of rocking by means of the cradle, or of securing
the desired treasure by its amalgamation through
the employment of quicksilver. In this manner
the crowd of diggers was forsaken at intervals by
little parties bent on the pleasant task of nugget-
ting ! Enhanced by all these different methods
adopted for its acquisition, the gold through-
out the whole world has increased in its
yearly yield, comparing 1840 with 1853, by the
enormous sum of 40,000,000/ ! The graduation
of this increase during the last thirteen years is
in sober truth something really astonishing. Alto-
gether, the yield of gold in 1840 was not more
than 5,000,0001. In 1848 it had only increased
to 7,000,000/. But in the spring of that (for
many reasons) ever-memorable year, the Califor-
nian discovery had been made quite accidentally
by Mr. MARSHALL, in the construction of a saw-mill,
on the American Fork, one of the numerous feed-
ers of the River Sacramento. And the effect of this
discovery was soon rendered visible by the increase
of the gold-yield in 1850 to 17,500,0001. During
the following year—another among the more me-
morable years of our generation—during 1851,
the total yield had increased yet more, reach-
ing the splendid sum of 22,500,0001. But a
still more wonderful discovery than that made
by Mr. MARSHALL, on the American Fork in
California, had been made on the 12th of Febru-
ary, in 1851, by Mr. HARGRAVES, in New
South Wales, in the discovery (not by accident,
but by systematic investigation) of gold dig-
gings in the districts of Bathurst and Welling-
ton. By a curious coincidence, the news of this
discovery became known in Sydney on the very
day, the Ist of May, when her MAJESTY was open-
ing the Crystal Palace by a solemn and a stately
ceremony of inauguration. The consequence was
not very long in rendering itself apparent. By
1852 the yield of gold had reached the magnifi-
cent total of 40,000,0001., and by 1853 the glorious
aggregate of 45,000,0001., exceeding the yield of
only thirteen years before, as already intimated,
by a clear sum of 40,000,000/. Everything, in-
deed, has helped to prove that the depreciators
of the accounts first received from the gold
diggings of California and Australia were slightly
mistaken in their application of the proverb, " All
is not gold that glitters"—more, in fact, having
turned out to be gold in both directions than at
the outset could have been at all anticipated.
recognised Nevertheless, there is another adage fraught
with wisdom, which is gradually coming to be
ognid.
caalsledwotrtohyth,
eatthis
period,
of being
s;
" Look before _popularecollect ion—
seerciusl
you leap." It is a shrewd recom-
mendation enough at all •
humane in its tendency when commended at this
juncture to the remembrance of th 6 general com-
munity. With this object it was put forward
rather prominently, only the other day, in the
intelligent pages of Mr. DICKENS'S Household
Words. An eye-witness, addressing the British
multitude from Melbourne, spoke • thus plainly,
and we cannot help thinking, sorrowfully too,
as from the dejection of experience_,, To all
whom it may concern ; once for all, digging is so
very arduous and precarious
a work that 'very few
excepting labouring men can continue It profitably,"
A melancholy assurance, corroborative of this, is
given in the course of those very admirable