San Andreas independent., 1857-10-31
From the Sacramento Daily Union.
Letter to the Miners of California--No. 2.
BIZ cAxroN.

do not incur, nor any species of disease that
you do not suffer. The toll you are compelled
to undergo daily, would wear out constitu-
ton OF iron; and yet you work on month after
month, and year after year, unconscious of the
inroads of disease, and beating back the adj
vances of age, until suddenly the wheels of
life are stopped and you drop into some lone
some grave, far from the homes ofy your child
hood and the "row of green hilocks" where
slumber the rest of your ancestral race.
You die and are forgotten. Not one in ten
thousand has monument, and the rains of
the next winter wash away all evidences Of
your interment. The eye of flial pity or
plighted love may weep that you are no more,
but it can never water the unmarked sod
where you repose. Unhappy in life, the Miner
is not less so in death.
Your social condition is, perhaps, next to
that of the sailor, the most unfortunate of any
state of exile, suffering all the evils of perpet-
ual banishment, added to all the rigors of
frontier life. Few, very few amongst you, af-
ter the fatigues and dsappointmcnts of the
day, have homes, to which you can retire at
night, and there be blcst with the smiles of
consorts and the prattle Of children.
You grow old prematurely. Grey hairs be-
sprinkle the auburn locks of stalwart man.
hood, and wasted frames but too often prog
nosticate an early demise. Heart-sickness
soon seizes upon the unlucky, and dissipation
follows, with all horrors, in its train With
out parental roof to shelter you, or an ain
fireside" to fly to, when
"Unmercfu disaster follows fast and follows faster"
Many Of you become burdens to those who
are almost as helpless as yourself, and finally
perish through lack of the prime necessaries
of life.
Is this not so? | appeal to the dispirited
whose misery has driven them to the intox-
eating BOWL / appeal to the disappointed,
whose ill-luck has seduced them to the gam
ing table; I appeal to the married, the en-
feebled, the sick and the homeless, whose
misfortunes so often stare us in the face at the
corners of our streets, and whose wasted forms
and purple lips ask charity from the passers
by. To the dead also, might appeal Look
at the list of our suicides France in the blaze
. of her first revolution, could scarcely surpass
MS in the number of self-murders Look at
the catalogue of crime in our mountain towns
and mining localities! Was there ever such
havoc made of human life since the world be-
gan? WHOSE FAULT Is IT? This is the great
question. 1t swallows up all others. Let us
consider it calmly-but at the same time let
US look it full in the face, without blenching
1t is time it were answered Had it been
regarded in n statesmanlike manner FIVE years
ago, many miner whose skeleton lies bleach
ing in the deep gorges of the Sierras, would
now be amongst u.s. a blessing to their family.
and an honor to their country. | revert to
the question Whose .fauh is a.? Not the mi
ncr's-for he is the soul of industry, and his
arm works with all the regularity and half
the power of a piston-rod. Originally his
morals are good, and his heart without guile
lie is proverbial for his hospitality, his benevo-
AS"NNj CIV NO SehSAoSiel hHCti uc gives, lie
bestows with all the munifcence of prince.
There is no corner in his heart coroded by
Selfishness. He makes the misfortunes of
others, sympathetically his own, and ONLY
frank, honest, and courageous, makes the
man, then is he Natures nobleman. He is
the truest gentleman in the State, for he earns
his living, and lives upon his earning
The fault lies somewhere else; the Miners
it is not.
Without hesitation and without fear of sue
cessful refutation, 1 charge the fault primarily
upon The Legislature Of the State Each Legis-
lature could have done much to have amelio-
rated the condition of the Miner to have de-
fined his rights and rcdressed his grievances,
but not one of them has performed its duty.
Your legislative representatives generally have
been either tricksters or idiots-those who
would not, or else those who could not see your
rights. Political chicanery has swallowed up
seven years of valuable timc and left legacy
of corruption in office, that scarce half q
century will eradicate. But even when your
legislative bodies have proceeded to business, |
they have with a unanimty that is almost in
credible, ignored the existence of the Miner
altogether They have passed long statutes
on the subject of delivering up slaves to their
quondam masters they have enacted and re-
pealed many laws regarding the immigration
of foreigners; they have kept the seat of gov
ernment on wheels for FIVE out of the seven
years of our existence as a sovereign State !; |
they have recklessly plunged into one State
Prison Fraud after another, until Estell him
self has grown sick with their infamies they
have concocted Squatter bills by the dozen,
and passed Relief bills by the gross they have
flooded the entire State with enactments on
the taxation of the people and the fees of pub
lie officers they have frittered away their
time in changing the patronymics of individu-
ais, in squabbling over Senatorial elections, in
backing and filling on navigation monopolies,
in patching up the Practice Act, and in passing
unconstitutional laws upon all subjects which
the mind of man can devise, but rhnt, 1 ask, |