New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-05-04


prominence to the sunny side of the picture.
The finding of big lump or rich pocket
is instantly chronicled and universally re-
peated, but of the thousands who dig ar
duously for months yet obtain very little,
nothing is heard or needed. Misfortune or
i'll luck is not apt to be communicative
and, if it were, no one cares to hear from
it. The hundreds who, having each made
his pile float down to San Francisco to
recreate, or buy provisions, or come home,
we readily hear; but ten times as many
NAV die of disease, exposure, bad water or
sheer exhaustion, in their rude and solitary
cabins-perhaps under the shelter of a few
boughs only-in the lonely mountain glens
whittier the hunt for gold has led them,
vet no word of their fate ever reach US.
The newspapers are sometimes blamed for
giving the hopeful side only of California,
when they give all they get; but, from
the nature of the case, they cannot do
otherwise than give, in their extracts from
California letters and journals, a view
more inviting than we think the whole
truth would warrant.
We presume the Gold Mines of Califor-
MIA have thus far proved more productive
than any other ever opened-that is, they
have yielded a greater average value for
each days labor expended therein-but
they do not and cannot contravene the
general truth that Mining is of all pursuits
most hazardous, and that, even in the most
productive locality and season, many fol-
low it to their own loss, and, in spite OF
individual or temporary exceptions, we
are confident that the chances are not now
so good in California for man to make
money with no capital but a shovel pam
knapsack of provisions and stout pair of
arms, as they were two years ago. There
is plenty of gold in the ground yet; but
that ground is in good part staked off,
and no longer free to all comers while the
immediate banks Of the streams at the
most promising points have mainly been
worked over, and now either the command
of machinery or the use of water from
some ones race conveying a portion OF
one of the streams to the aurlterous hill
sides or plains many hundreds of yards
away is generally indispensable to advan-
tageous mining-and these cost money.
That hardy, robust, energetic, skillful
men, especially those who understand some
good trade, such as black smithing, house
building, machine &C., can do well
in California without capital, we have
not doubted. But there is a very large
class of Adventures who think they may
do well there because they have not done
well here-men willing to do any thing
but really qualified for nothing, or only for
Trade, Teaching or something of the sort
and these, we are quite sure will be apt to
do badly among the gold-hunters. There
were some such in the very first ship-load
of adventurers who crossed the Isthmus
and landed at San Francisco, and these at
once wrote home and soon came home
reporting that California was cheat,
humbug, barbarous, horrible delusion,
wherefrom any man should be happy to
escape with his life. Such there have been
since, and will be hereafter. We cannot
think that such should be encouraged to
migrate to California, unless they have
friends already firmly established there who
are able and willing to employ them.
So with regard to Women. That COM
Portable dwellings, with all requisite con-
veniences and even Injuries, may be OBJ
tanned in some parts of California, By those
able to pay for them, is undoubted. That
men in good business there, with sufficient
means, and intending to remain, should
send or come for their families, is matter
of lcourse. But there are thousands of
women who are anxiously seeking the
means of emigration in the hope of making
their fortunes in the Gold Region, who will
be sadly disappointed if they ever set foot
in the streets of San Francisco. Women
with Inefficient, badly managing or intem-
perate husbands, are planning and impor-
tuning relatives for the means Of reaching
California with their families, calculating
there to conquer fortune, who are quite
likely to wish themselves in any well con-
Quoted Aims House within three months
after leaving their present humble but not
destitute homes. We do not believe the