Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1863-11-05
CALIFORNIA %. wAsHOE.

The heavy draft which the mines of
Washoe makes upon the population and
capital of California is source of much
grievance to and some complaint from
certain journals in that State. In their
troubles and wailings over this real or
fancied evil, and in their earnest effort to
mitigate it, they fall into divers errors, and
make sundry statements not warranted by
the real facts, and the deductions they
draw, and the conclusions to which they
arrive in the premises, are consequently
unjust and erroneous. In the hegira from
California which has naturally followed
the discovery of the unprecedently rich
silver mines of this Territory, and the
transfer of capital from mercantile, agri-
cultural and mining speculation in that
State to investments in the mines of
Washoe, they see only evil, and in their
expostulations they mis-stste and exagger-
ate to an extent that is terrific to read. 1t
is but few days since that one of the
Bay papers stated that San Francisco
owned $25,0Oo,OOo of Washoe stock.
Another complained that the Washoe
mines owned three-fourths of the Bay
city. 1t is undoubtedly true that a sort
of mania prevails in the cities and towns of
California, for reckless speculation in
Washoe mining stocks, and that unwise
people become the victims of sharpers.
That is no new or wonderful state of
things. Such mania's have existed from
all time; the world has never been quite
free from fools at any period Of its history,
and California itself has not been exempt
from the disease of inordinate, reckless
speculation in wild and chimerical schemes
within its own borders. The class of
people who rush blindly into the stock
market and fall victims to the wildcat
sharpers, are those who in any country
and at any time, and under any circum-
stances, are determined to verify the adage
of a fool and his money. Whether it be
the vender of bogus feet" the swindling
steamship line to Frazer or Cariboo, the
Cocos Island pirate, or the Ditch Company
chartered to carry water from dry
ravine to worthless dry diggings; whether
it be one of these or the other, it is but a
choice of traps into which Mr.. Gullible
is sooner or later sure to fall. Chief
among ten thousand, and altogether
savage among the scolders at what it calls
Montgomery street mining is the
Evening Journal. Among much that is
not sound, that paper says many things
that are perfectly true and forcibly ex-
pressed: For instance
"The difference between legitimate mining
and the prevalent system of stock fobbing.
is as great as that between the solid rock
and the empty bubble; the latter is nothing
more than a bubble which we would gladly
see prieked - collapsed - vanished out Of
sight. On the contrary, we regard real, earth
90 HTedL
interest Of the Pacific Coast-the one which,
for years 10 come, must be the foundation,
the support, and life, Of all other interests,
whether Of agriculture, manufactures, or
commerce; and We would go as far as the
farthest to promote il. But we are>opposed
70 Montgomery street mining, because its di-
rect tendency is to injure genuine mining as
well as to ruin thousands Of men who have
invested or are about 10 invest their all in
the widest of wildcat stocks, to unsettle
business, to withdraw men from their regular
callings, and make loungers Of laborers and
hitherto useful men,"
We concur: at the same time there is
much in the article from which the fore
going is an extract. that win not hold
water as an argument sssinst investment
in Wsshoe stocks, and hereis specimen:
Instead of being willing to invest their
surplus earnings in California for what they
can easily see, the hearts Of the people are
set upon something away in the distance,
and the further OF and the more inAcces.
sible, the more eager they are to acquire it.
They prefer the unseen to that Immediately