The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-06 00:00:00

IMPORTS

Cotton Piece Goods—A fair amount of business has, not-
withstanding the Deewallee holidays, been transacted in
our import market during the fornight ; and in most in-
stances the prices have advanced. Gray shirtings, 45 inches,
are most in favour ; gray longcloths, gray T cloths, and
gray madapollams have participated in the general im-
provement.
Bleached and Fancy Goods.—Bleached madapollams are
dull and not inquired for ; bleached jaconets, low ar d
medium, continue unchanged ; and bleaching shirting are
scarce and in good inquiry. Fancy and Turkeyred goods
have not improved, and stocks in the market are increasing.
Lappet scarfs, small size, are scarce, and in moderate
inquiry.
Cotton Yarns.—Both mule and water have advanced in
price, the former being in active inquiry. There has been
little doing in coloured yarns.
Metals.—The prices have generally given way, and the
market is dull. Tile copper and nail rod, round, have ad-
vanced in prices, and are in good demand.
Marine Stores.—There has been little or nothing in
canvas, the same may be remarked of cordage, while twine
has been sold in small quantities.
Exr OVA'S.
Cotton.—The high prices are still maintained. We quote
Veravel at 145 r. to 146 r. ; Compta, at 134 r. to 1361 r.
Broach has been in very active demand.
Oil Seeds.—Teelseed is in demand and scarce; linseed
and rapeseed have declined in prices, and Niger is quite
dull.
Tonnage.—The rates of freights continue unimproved,
and we quote 17e. 6d. to £1 for Loudon, and 16s, to 17s, 6d,

for tilt/pool, while for China we cannot quote more than
31r. to 4r. per candy.
Exchange.—The amount of specie received by the last
China steamer had the effect of checking the upward ten
dency of the rates ; and our closing quotations are 2s. ld.
for Bank paper, 2s. Id. for documents, at six months'
sight, On Calcutta, at 60 days' sight, we quote 991 r. ; on
Madras, at 30 days' sight, 99r. ; and on China, at 60 days'
sight, 216 r. to 218 r. per 100 dols.

THE WIZARD AT THE DIGGINGS.

We find the following amusing letter in the

Aberdeen Herald :
Ballarat, Victoria, Sept. 2.
I told you of my great nights under the patron-
age of the Communn na Feinne," when all Scot-
land around Geelong visited the theatre. I have
now to tell you of another Scottish patronage
received in Melbourne a week afterwards. Hav-
ing finished my engagement at Geelong, I pro-
ceeded to Melbourne in order to give six repre-
sentations of Rob Roy.' I had effected an advan-
tageous arrangement with Mr. Coppin, and was
very glad, for his sake, as well as my own, that
the opening night was one of the best houses which
had been seen in the Theatre Royal.
For the five following nights the theatre pre-
sented an almost equally crowded conditi3n—the
last night (Saturday) rendered memorable by the
members of the Caledonian Society of Victoria at-
tending in Higland costume. This society is but of
recent origin, though it already numbers many of
the most influential Scotchmen of the colony among
its members. Its patron is the governor Sir Henry
Barkly. The society is to have a gathering at Mel-
bourne in April of next year. Invitations have been
forwarded to all the Scotchmen in Victoria, New
South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, New
Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands, to attend.
Orders have been sent home for dresses and orna-
ments. The governor has commissioned his tailor
in Scotland to fit him out in kilt and philabeg
in a. manner befitting his position ; and every
body interested is vieing with everybody equally as
interested, to see how each can best look the High-
lander at the first great " gathering" in Australia.
Hear this, ye dealers in tartan ! make a note of it,
ye consignees of Cairngorums I pay attention to it,
ye designers of dirks and manufacturers of Cale-
donian curiosities ! I know of one jeweller in Mel-
bourne who alone has sent home for a thousand
pounds' worth of Cairngorums ; andthere is a draper
in Collins-street who tells me that the order for
tartan he sent home two months since will strain
the energies of three of the best manufacturing
houses up to the time for shipment in January
next. If a thousand Scotchmen do not come out
in the ship which brings that cargo I shall be
very much disappointed, for I hear a rumour that
the ship is likely to be the Leviathan. Her coin-
ing to Port Philip Bay is one of the chief topics
of talk. Every, one believes that she will make
the voyage out in a month, so that her passengers
will have a month in which to see the
colony —be another month going home, and
thus after having voyaged 17,000 miles, seen the
richest colony .of the southern hemisphere, and re-
turned by another voyage of 17,000 miles, being
again in their shops in London; Edinburgh, Glas-
gow, or Aberdeen, after tan absence of only three
months or thereabouts. Should this be accomplished,
as I have no doubt it will, a change will come about
in Victoria as great as that made by the discovery
of gold. No country on the globe will then be a
remote one when Australia becomes a pleasure trip
from England. Here remoteness is already fast
diminishing, for rumours are abroad that as soon
as the electric telegraph is completed to India, it
will be brought over the islands of the Eastern
Archipelago, and across Torres Straits to this great
southern land. There will then be daily communi-
cation between Melbourne and London, and " the
other end of the earth" will be at the finger ends of
him who who works the telegraph in Collins-street,
Melbourne, or in Lothbury London. Verily, science
will then have accomplished the greater part of her
mission to humanity, as Pope so well defines it—
" To speed the intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole."

Meanwhile, however, while science waits with her
boundless resources at command, capital and enter-
prise seem sadly at fault with relation to Austra-
lian intercourse. To expect the arrival of the mail
at the time when it is due, and to have anyregular
information on Englishmatters, have become fancies
in which no sane Victorian now indulges. When
in old heroic times they, wished to express the
idea of indulging in foolish anticipation or vain
exertion, they used the simile of its being as ab-
surd as "to seek the source of the Nile." At the
present rday in Victoria, the simile they employ,
under similar circumstances, is "to expect the
mail on the sth." Thus no one would think of
seeing snow here in January, being, cold at Christ-
mas, warm in July, or neglecting to see the per-
formance of the great Wizard of the North, any
more than they would 'expect the mail on the sth.'
If it get in twenty days after it is due people think
it pretty well ; and considering the number of mis-
haps which befel the last mail steamer on her voyage
from Point de Galle, if the next two or three mails
never come in at all no one would greatly wonder.
Not that the Victorians are the sort of people to
submit to an annoyance of this kind tamely and
quietly. On the contrary, they have already pretty
well determined to take the mail service into their
own hands, and have obtained from the Colonial
Government the promise of a large grant of money
to make the attempt. The probability is that the
Panama route will be the one selected, though there
'is a chance of both that and the Suez one being
used, the communication being by each alternately,
so as to establish a bi-monthly service. This is re-
quired by the importance to which the colonies have
attained and their vast commercial intercourse.
I left Melbourne for Ballarat by taking the road
to Geelong, and thence on, to the gold fields. At
present the roads of Victoria constitute one feature
of its most striking deficiencies. There are only two
lines of route which are in anything like good
order—that from Melbourne to Castlemaine, and
that from Geelong to Ballarat. But even these are
characteristic of Australia. You mount a coach,
which is no coach at all, but a large American van,
painted red, with rows of seats across the interior
so that the passengers are seated knee to knee and
back to back. Around you and over your head is,a
leather canopy, made fast by straps, but altogether
removed in the hot weather. Six thin, spire, bony
little horses start with you at full gallop, and at
bidding of the Yankee coachman, will go helter
skelter with you anywhere. These Yankee coach-
men are remarkable fellows, and have done much
to open up communication -with the interior. My
previous experience in the United States rendered
them no novelty to me when I again saw their small,
thickly-set bodies, dark eyes, and resolute look
on the box-seat -of " Cobb and Co.'s Telegraph
Line" in Melbourne. But to a stranger who has
never visited America they must be very noticeable
portions of Australian society. They will drive you
anywhere, down anywhere, overanything, through
any forest or over any field, and handle their horses
with as much tact and to as great nicety.as thtugh
they were performers in a circus, and their animnls
the " trained steeds."
It is a very pleasant trip from Geelong here if
you have fine weather. You do go down in a gully
sometimes, and through a steam of water now and
then, and you do see mud in more plenitude than
you ever saw on any road before. You have the
Yow-Yang Hills to your right., and the bold ridge
of the Banabools stretching away in the hazy dis-
tance to tha Cape Otway ranges, which can be
dimly seen away to your left. There is Mount Bun-,
inyong straight before you, and by and by, when
you have got fairly on your way, you will see a bit
of thereal Australian scrub. The " bush" of Aus-
tralia-is not composed of the loftiest of trees, but
chiefly of gums and wattle trees—the white gum,
the red gum, and the blue gum—the stringy
, bark, box-tree, and lightwood. Every now and
' then you see the trunk of a tree perfectly black
and charred on one side, with,- perhaps half the
interior of the trunk thoroughly encamped. Some
natives, or some wayfarers of a lighter skin, have
encamped against it, and there made their fire for
the night, causing the same tree to shelter them
with its boughs and warn them with its burning
wood, or occasionally you will trace for miles by
charred trunks of still leafy trees the track ofsome
bygone bush fire.
I am playing at the most popular of the three
theatres here—" The Charlie Napier," as it is called
—and am doing an excellent business. There are
three theatres built and one building. Of those
built, two are closed; the one which is open, and in
which I am to perform, is essentially the people's
house. It is where the diggers resort in the
evening to see the play, and afterwards to in-
dulge in the delights of the dance. A strange
set are those diggers—men who are far away,
from home, friends, and all friendly associa-
tions—who are' thoroughly "on the loose," and
who lead a careless, merry life ; working hard
though at times, and ofttimes very hard—so hard,
indeed, that few would like to be subjected to the
same amount of labour in Scotland or England
without the certainty of receiving a better reward
than the digger is certain to get. He may " make
his pike," or he may get nothing. He may work
two years and never dig up a grain of gold, and he
may'at length make a hundred pounds in a week.
It is the, most haphazard game in the world this
digging, and many have found it such to their sor-
row. Ballarat is the chief of the gold fields, but
not the one for the poor man to come to if he means
digging. Capital and machinery are necessary for
him who would now rob Ballarat of its golden trea-
sures. You scrape up no nuggets on the surface,
nor pick them up among the grass. There is the