San Andreas independent., 1858-03-27

TIE cTcuit vi tuc CedtC, duu tudl liIliit has
been finally reached. The bankrupt peo-
pie, too, are beginning to ask questions
they had no time to ask before; competi-
tors are also coming into the field, whose
morality and trustworthiness, in other re-
lations, have been already proved. The
dynasty of plumber, therefore, is rapidly
coming to an end.
Another large class of the emigration
is from New England, New York and the
Middle and Northwestern States. And
these again are in two classes. First, the
merchants, bankers, lawyers, engineers,
surveyors, and many of the head miners
, men who have come to California as to a
field of enterprise, and who bend all their
, energies to the particular personal calling
that engages them. Secondly, a class of
| reprobates in all styles and degrees, who
, find their way to California, simply be-
; cause they are not wanted anywhere
! These are the fugitives from justice, the
absconding biganlists, the felons and prison
| birds who want a new field where they
| are not known, defalcators, pimps, shoul-
der strikers and prize fighters, drunkards
! sons that could not be endured at home,
: and vagabond gentlemen whose friends
have been willing to escape the burden of
their support, by giving them an outfit to
some distant region. These and such
like characters were turned for time, in
shoals, upon California. But the pistol,
: the knife, the halter, the bad liquor and
: the Vigilance Committees are scattering
them rapidly and killing them off. They
flourish for time as the under-fghters
and ballot-box operators of the politician
, class just referred to; assuming the ALI
: ance to be one of natural good fellowship,
inasmuch as they too use the tools of
honor themselves But their trade is
, gone, they cannot even be drunk in the
streets, or draw knife out of their pock-
5 cts, without the painful certain prospect
! Of appearing in the chain gang the next
! morning. Meantime, the former and
r better class above named, with many of
the better class from the South, are build
churches, organizing institutions, looking
after charities, and showing more and
: more distinctly that the great hope of
: California is in them. They will even
consent to serve on juries, and some of
t them also to be named for public offices
e of trust and power, which formerly they
, would not. Time is giving them the
e controlling position as by kind of neces.
e sary process, and even compelling them
2 to assume it.
Thus, in the mining towns, are gath
e cred large bodies of men, without wives
e or children, living as cenobites in their
e dens, and no one needs to be Informed
c that men, living separately from women,
: are sure to make large stride towards
e barbarism. The occupation of mining is
t also more adventurous in itself, than con-
D sists with the best habits of application
: for if the digging isa venture, why should
: there not be venture at the gaming ia
), BILE, without the digging? 1t is not un-
a frequent that the placer mining gives
t out, and it is known to be always more or
a less precarious. Hence many of the
/; towns are mere encampments, and are
] called camps" And some that assumed
: to be more are already given up and near
: ly forsaken. Hence the miners become
f more or less migratory themselves, and
their towns are too nearly so, many OF
t them, to be much cared for, either in the
r building, or in the establishment of the
. social and religious institutions. a stran-
, ger too, will see a very distinct and sig
! nifcant. character in the names given tc
: places; such as Yankee Jim's, Fiddle
t town, Jackass Gulch, Whisky Bar, and q
: whole hundred names, of which these are
e the choicer specimens. 1t appears to be
!, the general opinion that there is decided
4 moral and social improvement in the mi
a ming population. But one who has at
i tended church for two Sundays, in mi
), ming town of the very first order, finding
! about forty persons present to hear good
r Christian sermon, and passing in the street
when returning from church, in both ca
q ses, full five hundred men, who had
s rushed together as spectators of street
e fight, will hardly think it possible that
: there should have been very great moral
S improvement there.
c At this point the author deyotes seve.
+ raj pages of his work to the consideration
), of the land question, the difficulties OF
# which, it is evident he has not thorough.
y ly mastered Indeed, we think his views
It on this subject more superficial than upon
n any other treated of in his pamphlet
h From the contemplation of few isolated
It cases, involving more than ordinary hard.
: ship to the owners of land, he has cvi.
y IDENTIFY imbibed strong prejudice against
e the settler, or squatter class, as he choo.
h ses to call them. Believing we. as well
|, as our readers, have more just appreci-
alton of the merits pertaining to this land
S controversy than the Reverend Doctor,
g we shall content ourselves by simply indi-
0 eating the drift of his opinions on the sub
ject without descantingo on them at length.
t As the mining and the agriculture of
California appears, thus far, to have been
connected with unpropitious moral infu-
ences, SO also it has been, even to much
greater degree, with the trade of politics
Composed of elements so various and re-
: pellant, it was not to be expected, for a
time, that there would be much confidence
l in public men or proceedinrs. And the