San Andreas independent., 1858-04-10

tl9nI!
CONSUMPTION OF LIVE STocK IN THE MINES
WHO sUsTAIys THE VALLEY COUNTIES ?-Whilst
our San Francisco contemporaries are alter
nately instructing and amusing their readers
ms to the amount, in dollars and cents, which
1T costs to support the various STYLES of city
life it may not be inopportune in us to parade
before our country friends, the fiocks and
herds f" which annually bleed to keep the him
ges of society creased, in San Andreas and its
immediate dependings.
We have two slaughtering establishments
in town, which, together, consume l8 beef
cattle, IL hogs, "a sheep, and II calves per
week. The beeves are estimated to average
4oolbs; sheep 35; hogs, l2o; calves, l5O.-
80 that in one year we eat up 936 oxen, weigh
ing, in the aggregate, 374, 400 pounds; hogs,
GA, weighing 1880 pounds; sheep, l,24s,
weighing 1860 pounds and calves, 624,
weighing $4,000 pounds. This makes grand
total of all staple fresh meats. (not including
game,) of fce hundred and eighty-six thousand
fre hundred and sirty pounds The average
cost, per pound, of this monstrous annual sac
ri6cc to our insatiate maws. is TWENTY-FIVE
cents. The total amount is Sl46,64O. All
this prodigious accumulation of animal life.
besides large quantities of fish, fowl and mis-
cellaneous grub" is annually consumed or
wasted by population not exceeding twelve
Inn ofo l;.;o
This estimate covers about one-eighth OF
the population of Calaveras county; and it is
fair to presume that our neighbors are not less
extravagant than ourselves. Granting this
assumption the number of hogs sheep and
bovines requisite to the annual supply of the
Calaveras market, amounts to 81 1872 head
at a cost of $l,l73.l2O. Deductng from this
90 per cent, as butchers and drovers' profits
and expenses, we have $9S6,sSO. Forty-nine
dollars out OF every fifty of this amount. is
paid by the +" bloody miners to the tax-be-
deviled, much-oppressed ranchmen of the
Valleys, whose backs are rubbed quite raw in
government without adequate assistance from
the mines. These poor ranchmen are right
The miners are literally swallowng up the other
resources of the State. They are evidently
''on ia perfect boa-constrictor mania per-
vades the miners for swallowing things but
then, they are like the big sarpient in an
other respect, they never worry themselves to
any extent in trying to swallow shadows
fbn hat tla
don't pay their share of taxes; that the VAL
lcys are suffering from the population of the
mines; and the like. These are the poor fan
cieS of imbecile brains and buncombe-squeak-
ing Freshmen in politics-the Oliver Twists
and Mr. Toots of the Legislature who having
neither the pinious to rise nor the strength to
stem the current like a poor, crippled goose,
float stupidity along with the wind and the
wave. to whatever dirty port chance may car
ry them. Out upon such as these give US
beef mutton or unhallowed pork but save
us from the nauseating drugs of these mouth
ing, upstart, political quacks. We say to the
ranchmcn-and we say it in that spirit of
kindly admoniton which always characterizes
a strong man after hearty dinner of roast
mcats--attend to your own business and let
the miners alone; raise plenty of cattle, sheep
and swine, for which the mountainecrs will
pay you gold send as few fools to the Lcgis-
lature as possible; try and exchange your
Legislative Twists and Toots's for men OF sound
sense and average honesty, and you will have
adopted the best means of securing your own
prosperity and establishing the solid glory of
the State.