Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-03-19
Correspondents Of the Spy.

IL.
MNssRs. EDrToRs:- have been thinking for
some time, that would drop you a few lines.
thinking you might like to hear few facts from
the land of gold. direct from the pen of an hon.
est miner, for there are so many conflicting ac.
counts in the California news that YOU get from
our papers, that one does not know what to be.
heve. To hear the big stories that are told about
table mountains, one would think that it was an
easy matter for any one to make fortune; but
there is one thing 1 notice they are very careful
not to mention, and that is the expense of get
ting the gold see it stated in our last Era, that
eight companies in Caldwers Garden, which is a
part of Table Mountain,worked out one hundred
pounds of gold in two days, which is true; but it
does not mention that they have been at work
euer since last spring, at an expense of from two
to nve hundred dollars per week, which will make
big hole in their piles
think, although Table Mountain abounds in
gold, that there will be about as many fortunes
spent in getting it out, there will be made al
though there will, no doubt, be some very heavy
strikes made One man in particular, has made
already, about fifty thousand dollars, but, where
one man mokes that, fifty will lose what they
have already got. So much in regard to Table
Mountain.
All our papers out here are full of encouraging
and tavern keepers, to get men to emigrate. If
a man happens to find big lump, it is blazoned
abroad, but no accounts are given of the ninety
| and nine, who don't make more than their grub.
| have not yet seen any great chances, here for
| man to make fortune, but if a man is prudent
and lucky, he can lay by something, and so he
can at home; and think it is the greatest piece
| OF folly Tor so many men to come out here that
! they can commit They land here in many cases,
| without dollar, thinking, l suppose that they
in fba ctr and, G,,d+
their sorrow, that it is not The DAYS for max
| ing fortune in hour are past, in California
| Perhaps you may think, from what have writ
| ten, that am rather inclined to be homesick, at
times, but don't know l am very homesick,
although 1 can but say that do miss my own
cheerful fireside and l can also say that never
knew the value of home till left it, and that is
the feeling of nearly every man here, who has left
a family at home and there are hundreds and
thousands here who would gladly return if thew
| could only get money enough ahead to pay their
passage
Before left home, heard that clothes and
provisions were about as cheap here as they were
in the Eastern STATES but if twenty. five cents
per quart for milk, seventy-fye cents per pound
for butter, and the for cheese twenysix cents
per pound for potatoes, twent, five cents per
pound for onions, twenty cents for beef, twenty
tve for fresh pork, and thirty seven for salt pork
is cheap, then it is cheap here, for that is the
price OF each article named, and everything else
in proportion. Miners wages range from 81 so
to 50 per day, and some extra hands get "a; but
then they must depend upon the water which is
unsteady, SO that very few get work all the time
Notwithstanding all this. if man has good
smart wife, and can fetch her out here with him.
he will do well enough, for she would be worth
fortune, to begin with, and think that a prudent
man and vile could make snug little fortune in
three or four years, for female labor is scarce and
high, and they can get their own price for every
thing they do Women are what we want, and
the cry of every man is, send us out more won.
en-. There never was place on earth that need
ed women as this place does There are lots of
villages here, where churches might be founded,
II they only had female influence to help to do it /;
but it is no to send out minstets here for I'm.
less you can induce women to come with them,
Their labors would be in vain.
There are several ministers here, in the South
ern mines, who have left off preaching and gone
to mining and, in all the places where there are no
women, fighting gambling, and numbering, are
the order OF the day. | honestly believe that fe
male influence will do more towards putting stop
to all these evils, than all the laws that can be
made.
| But have already written more than intend
ed, so will bring my letter to a close II it is
agreeable to you, will, from time to time, give
| you sketch of matters and things out here on
the correctness of which you may rely as | have
no interest IN stating anythinG otherwise than
| II u.s. Yours &c, >. u.