The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent. (Port Gibson, Claiborne Co., Miss.) 1848-18??, 1850-02-15

Go walk upon our levee-bustle, actlvl-
ty, energy, haste, enterprise, everywhere
meet our view. A thousand vehicles are
moving to and fro: a thousand men are
hurrying along, as if life were too short
for the accomplishment of their designs.
Visit our Atlantic cities, whose white
winged messengers of commerce plough
every sea-witness the hustle upon the
wharves, the hum and stirring note of bu-
siness. Every man works as if his very
life depended upon the exertions of the
day. Traverse the avenues of trade
e. walk slowly through the crowded street,
Filled with an every varying train, "a
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain"
There you see every one in haste-every
thing in motion-all bustle, activity, and
life. There you see anxious faces and
care-worn brows, old and young. strong
and weak, mingling in wild confusion and
jostling each other in the busy throng, all
actively engaged in the great strife.
Money is the guerdon of the battle of
the age-the Olympic wreath, for which
every faculty is exerted and every nerve
strained-the laurel crown, for which life
and limb are risked upon the wave and
upon the land. All classes and all grades
have enlisted in the contest. The divine,
without a murmur, resigns his beloved
flock into the hands of a strange shepherd,
whenever he may be called to more
fruitful part of the Lords vineyard; he,
too, is engaged in the great battle. The
poor man leaves the land, which afforded
his fathers a comfortable subsistence, to
seek soil which shall yield more boun-
| tiful reward to his labors,. The young
man, raised in affluence. yet dissatisfied
with his paternal inheritance, sunders all
ties which binds him to home and kindred,
to search for untold riches in the "diggins'
of California. This strife for better things
has kept our population surging, like a
mighty ocean, toward the west, for fifty
years past. The ultima thule has been
reached at last. California is the only
place where the cry of westward no! is
not heard. The enterprising pioneers
who have been sweeping down the forests
farther and farther to the west, must there
stop, for the ocean which received from its
Creator the injunction, "thus far shalt thou
60 and no farther" now repeats the same
command to them.
We murmur not that our lot has beer
cast in such an age. 1t is, at times, bit
ter reflection, that, for acquiring respect il
society and for the accomplishment o
many Iule desirable objects, talent anc
learning are found wanting when weighed
in the balance with wealth, and that these
desirable possessions are valued by thei
owner only in proportion to their impor
tance as allies, in the great strife for afflu
ence; yet when we look around us and Sc,
what has been accomplished, and thnl
what is likely to be accomplished in ou
times, we are constrained to confess that
is great age-our hearts swell within u
at the thought that we are enabled to ac
our part in it, and our ovation is scarcel,
damped by the reflection, that the prim
, moving cause which has brought about al
these wonderful things, is a thirst 70
wealth-and the grand handspring of tn
whole is money.