Daily national Democrat., 1858-10-28
snaIrtr In the Mines.

One of our mountain correspondents pre-
sents rather gloomy picture OF the state Of
social morals in she mines Drinking and
gambling are common. "There is no such
thing, he says, "as society in the mining
regions Any drunken set of blackguards,
who have money, can rule those who pretend
to decency. There is no restraint, and no ex-
ample but that of rudeness, and of degrad-
ing tendency" We are inclined to think that
our correspondents disgust for certain scenes
which he has been forced, it may be very
frequently, to witness, in the mines, has col
ored somewhat too highly his opinions. We
have no doubt that there are many mining
towns in which gambling, Notwithstanding
the stringent law against it, is carried On
openly, and where drunkenness and every
species of vice and immortality are common; ;
but we must be permitted to suppose that
there are some mining towns of a different
character. There must be many places in
the mines where the rude semi-barbarous
manners in which men, left to themselves,
|
| by the presence of respectable and worthy
females, married or unmarried, who always
form nucleus around which the elements
of society gather and are purified. The
presence Of respectable families in any min
ing town, or in fact, in any other kind of a
town, is sure to put open vice to the blush,
and cause it either TO hide itself from sight or
assume, in some degree, an outward show of
virtue and decency.
We have no doubt, however that the ma
jority Of the mining towns are not, in every
respect, what they should be- No commu-
nifty in the world is. Vice exists everywhere
but in the more advanced communities, its
more open and brazen forms do not exist. 1t
shuns the light, seeks immunity in retired
and secret places, and none need witness it,
unless they do so of their own free will and
accord. We recollect the time when, even
in this most moral and virtuous city, gamb-
ling houses opened upon the principal streets,
in which loose women dealt monte, and row
dyism and prostitution were very nearly as
public as "the broad and general air" 1t is
now banished, but public opinion has become
sufficiently potent to drive them from the
public gaze, and hold them in check. Such
should be the case with the mining towns as
well, and sorry would we be, indeed, to be
leve that the foundation principles, at least,
Of good society were not already existing in
the most of them Every decent and re-
spectacle man in the mines ought at once to
do his utmost toward setting this leaven in
the community to work. Particularly ought
such a state of public opinion to be aroused
as would drive out that monster vice of all
vices in this country, gambling. This vice
has teen the great curse of the gold seeking
classes. 1t has destroyed its thousands. 1t
has turned youthful heads prematurely gray
with SORROW and disappointment. 1t has
robbed, in single night, the hard working,
but momentarily infatuated, miner of the
accumulation of months or years of honest
toll in the mud and rain and snow, or in the
taken the gold which was to feed and succor
the innocent and the helpless. 1t has given
to the yilest of the vile and the lowest of the
low the comparatively little, but really great,
sum which was to redeem the mortgaged
homestead and preserve the sacred rooftree
over the heads of the trusting hopeful ones
at home. 1t has dug the grave of the once
hal py, and enterprisng and industrious, and
sent darkly down the tide of ruin the young,
the gay and the thoughtless. The tempta-
tion which thus swallows up the proceeds of
honesty industry, and draws into its desola-
ting circle the best hopes of the very best
class of mankind-the bone AMI sinew of
ist. No District Attorney is worthy of his
position who does not do his utmost to en-
force the law against gambling, or, if it be
found defective, no legislator is fit to repre-
sent a civilized and Christian community
who will not vote for its amendment. The
monstrous iniquity should be driven into its
dens and secret caves, and made to hide itself
where none but the experienced gamester or
the already ruined devOtee could find it. 1t
should not be permitted to throw out publicly
its temptations to the thousands who would
never otherwise be drawn into its vortex
SUDDEN DEATH-A man, named Robert
Dempster, died suddenly, Monday, says the S
f. Herald, while being conveyed from
house on Sutter street, where he dwelt, to