The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-08 00:00:00

(From the New York Herald of Jan. 23.)

The news which we publish to-day, being three weeks
later from California, will attract the observation of the
whole community. The statements confirming the vast
gold discoveries, in that region, coming from our cor-
respondent, will not only command the attention of the
commercial world, but of civilization itself. We have
arrived at a. new period, a new era, a fresh crisis, in the
history of commerce, and even of civilization. A spirit
is generated from those dicoveries, which is more active,
more intense, and more widely spread, than that which
agitated Europo in the time of Columbus, Cortez, and
Pizarro. These late accounts will be read with great
interest, and we desire our readers to watch the effects
which they will certainly produce on the commercial and
other interests around us.

According to these recent advice', the gold region of
California is the most wonderful that has ever been
discovered. There seems to be no doubt that, in a
short time—probably in less than two years—these
mines can be made to produce 100,000,0001. per
year. The region is the most extensive of the kind
in the world, being eight hundred miles in length
and 100 in width, with every indication that gold exists
in large native masses, in the rocks and mountains of the
Sierra Nevada. But these vast gold mines are not the
only mineral discoveries that have been made. The
quicksilver in the same region seems to be as abun-
dant as the gold, so that there are approximated to
each other two metals, which will have a most important
effect and utility in making the gold mines more va-
luable. Heretofore the gold and silver mines of
Mexico and Peru have been valuable to Spain, because
she possessed a monopoly of the quicksilver mines at
Almaden, in the Peninsula. This is surpassed by Ca-
lifornia.

According to the last accounts now given to the public,
emigrants were crowding in from every port of the Pacific
to California—from Mexico, Peru, the Sandwich Islands,
Oregon; and we have no doubt by this time the British
possessions in the East, China, and everywhere else in
that region, are furnishing emigrants to the wonderful
regions of California. In less than a year there will
probably be a population of 100,000 to 200,000 souls,
all digging for gold, and capable of producing from
100,000,000 to 300,000,000 dolls. worth per annum of
pure gold, to be thrown on the commerce of the world
at one fell swoop. This will produce results that no one
can at this time estimate.

These are the general views of the productiveness of
this region, and the prospect before us for the next
few years. What is to be the effect of such vast dis-
coveries on the commerce of the world—on old com-
munities, on New York, London, and other great
commercial cities ? The only common-sense mode
by which we can arrive at a correct solution of
this problem, is to inquire and to ascertain the effect
which they have already produced in California. We
have seen that prices of every description of produce or
manufactures have risen tremendously; and the same
results, on a wider scale and on a more extended
basis, will be produced by the influx annually of a
hundred millions of pure gold throughout the com-
mercial world, and particularly in this country and Eu-
rope. Such a vast addition to the gold currency of the
world will at once disturb the prices and value of all
productions and merchandize to a similar extent to that
which we see in Monterey and San Francisco. The
prices of every commodity will therefore rise extrava-
gantly during the next few years, according to the pro-
duce of gold from that region. Now, in a rising market
everything prospers; every one gets rich, civilization
expands, industry increases, and all orders of society
are benefited. As soon as the first crop of gold
from California reaches New York, the impulse
which it will give to commercial enterprise, and
the advance in the price of everything which
it will cause, will be tremendous. The bank
currency will be expanded, for the basis will be abun-
dant; real estate will increase in value, agricultural
productions and agricultural labour will advance at
once, 10, 15, 20, 30, or 40 per cent., even to as
great an extent, perhaps, as was witnessed
when the demand came from Ireland for the food of
this country to feed the starving Irish. New York
and her sister cities will be the centre of all those
revolutionary movements which are certain to spring
from the gold productions of California, on the com-
merce of the whole civilized world. Ship-building
will increase in value, steam-boats will be wanted,
the railroads projected across the Isthmus in various
places in Mexico and Central America will be pushed
to completion, and we should not be surprised to see
an active attempt made, under the auspices of the Federal
Government, to construct a railroad across the continent,
through the South Pass, from St. Louis, or some other
point on the Mississippi, to San Francisco. The dis-
covery of these great gold mines will no doubt form the
agent of the greatest revolution in the commercial cen-
tres of the world and on the civilization of the human
race that has ever taken place since the first dawn of
history.
These are our views, carefully deduced from common
sense, and the ordinary facts recorded in history, as well
as developing themselves in California. Are they ex-
travagant ? are they fanciful ? We don't think
they are. We think we talk soberly, religiously, and
quietly. New York will henceforth, from its position
to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, probably in less
than a quarter of a century, present a population greater
than that of Paris, and display evidences of wealth,
grandeur, magnificence, and industry, to an equal, if not
greater degree, than what we see in London at this day.
We expect that in the next 25 years we shall make as
rapid a march in this metropolis, and in the neighbour-
ing cities, as any city has done during the last 25 centu-
ries. There is no necessity for all going to California.
Those who remain, and will raise produce, manufacture
goods, build ships, construct steam-engines, and advance
the fine arts, will enjoy the benefits of those discoveries
to as great an extent as those who go to the Sacramento
to dig for gold. All the results of the labours of
those diggers must come to this metropolis, swell its
magnificence, and increase the intensity of its action in
commercial affairs. Even in a political point of view the
discovery of these wonderful gold mines in California,
under the Government of the United States, will have
a wonderful and astounding effect. We should not be
surprised to see, in a short time, all the old provinces
of Mexico, as far as the Isthmus of Darien, knock-
ing for admission into this union ; while, on the other
side, the British provinces of Canada, and even the
Spanish island of Cuba, may be begging and praying
to be let in at the same time, and be permitted to enjoy
some of the vast advantages, and participate a little in
the energy, which this vast confederacy will exhibit
to the astonished world. When Colonel Mason, and
the Government officers and troops in that region
—when, also, Colonel Stevenson, formerly of this city,
al d the youthful men who accompanied him, return to
New York, and exhibit their thousands, tens of thou-
sands, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, as we ex-
pect they will do in less than a year, these wonderful
facts and discoveries will produce their natural and legi-
timate impressions on the public mind. Wait and see!

THE
TRIAL OF THE NEW STEAM. CA!._l4olnAdGaßy
an expe-
rimental COUNTIES RAILWAY,--OA Monday
Counties
tin:mutat trip was made on
the
steam carriage,
with this new species of
intended chiefly to work the branch
lighter trains, than the
rai
traffic at a more
moderate cost, by means o
engines, the substi-
present system of heavy locomotiveh
tution being that of a lig passenger engine of about
twelve tons for one of bet
between forty and fifty. Some of
the directors and other
gentlemen connected with the
line were in the train during
thes ati
spf
ar oc gt
irotn, s,s of the
in
experi-
ment,the which worked with
course of a trial at express speed the engine, as it is
technically termed, "broke down, from an over-strain-
ing, it was understood, of the delicate machinery.
opENING OF THE ENFIELD AND EDMONTON RAIL-
wi
The opening of this suburbancom-
mences extension, which com-
mences nine miles up the Cambridge line of the Eastern
Counties Railway, at Edmonton, terminating, after running
somewhat more than two mile; at Enfield, will be opened
in the course of a few days. Satisfactory excursion trips
were yesterday made between the termini, by Mr. Lawford,
the engineer, Mr. Earle, the contractor, and other gentle-
men connected with the railway, which embraces in its
route all the picturesqueness of that rural region. It has
been constructed in the space of some six months, at a cost
of between 40,0001. and 50,000/. The only engineering work
of note is a bridge of some dimensions at the Edmonton
end; and at Enfield a fine old mansion, up to which the line
runs, has been selected to form the station. The steepest
gradient is 1 in 87, the smallest radius of curve above twenty
chains. The Act was obtained in August, 1846, but the
postponement of the works was the result of the then gene-
ral suspension of operations. The transit from Slioreditch
will be effected daily in a few minutes.

IRELAND.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
DUBLIN, FEB. 6.—The truly fraternal affection ex-
hibited by Lord Brougham in the debate on the Address
in the Lords, when his Lordship referred to the
Irish Crown lawyers, has excited a vast deal of merri-
ment, and afforded, in the dearth of business, a great
fund of talk amongst the bar. I wonder, however, that
Lord Brougham, who has not destructively submerged
his great intellect beneath the load of legal horse-hair,
has not dealt with the case of Irish Crown lawyers in a
more extensive view than that in which they are pre-
sented to him, as hair-splitters on points of law, and fa-
bricators of quirks and quiddities. Why has not the
Noble Lord taken them as part of an unwholesome
system of government, which requires to be purified
from their narrow-minded and ignorant interference in
its concerns? In England an Attorney-General, and of
course all those under him, are attendants, gentlemen in
waiting, on the behests of authority. An Attorney-
General is told to hold back and he halts, beis desired
to prosecute and he prosecutes, and possibly he
convicts. It may not be one of thb least influen-
tial elements in his official success, that he
goes to work like a mere impassive instrument
of power—with no excited feeling—no indecent anxiety
for success—no burning resentment to be gratified—no
collateral issue as to his own wisdom or prudence raised,
or to be tried, with the question sent to the jury. How
different is the case here. Amongst us, the Attorney-
General is a part of the Government. He advises and
directs in the first instance, and he carries out with all
the rampant zeal of a partizan the project which be
may have originally counselled with the obstinacy and
ignorance of a blunderer. In thus speaking, I mean no
offence to the distinguished equity lawyer who is our
present Attorney-General, nor to his colleagues, who
are all men of unexceptionable good character and worth,
and hold high places in their profession. But Ido not
hesitate to embody an opinion that is very generally en-
tertained that Irish lawyers are too much mixed up
in the government of that country. Men, in order to
be qualified to take a share in government, should
be men of the world, and those who are not so,
who have merely studied human nature in black
letter and not in the vivid Bud burning
characters of the living world, are unfit to be rulers in
the social state. It is no libel to say that a mere lawyer
is at best a narrow-minded man, and the more tho-
roughly imbued he is with the study and lore of his
science, as applied to the mercantile business of the world,
in the same degree will he be a pedantic and frequently
dictatorial formulist, no more suited to the functions of
government than Dr. Syntax himself. Experience
proves that lawyers always oppose reform. Fed upon
precedent, and fattened on tradition, they hold
things as they are in a degree of reve-
rence that confers sanctity upon an ancient
abuse, and regards any improvement as a dangerous
innovation. Hence, too frequently, they are enemies to re-
form in every shape, and it would seem that the paramount
duty of every Irish lawyer is to be as busy as possible,
doing nothing, and availing himself of the first opportu-
nity to spring into a soft seat on the Bench, leaving his
successor in office, if, to say so, be not a bull, to finish
the work that he himself had never begun! The obvious
remedy for this is—to turn the lawyers out. Keep them
in their proper places—whatever is right to be done do
it, but take none of their advice—let them stick to their
lasts, and until that rule is enforced, there is no hope for
Ireland.