New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-03-24
EoRTy-TTYE IND ETGHTY-NINE.


Old Forty-niners laugh at the attempt to
compare high prices at the Lower California
placer mines with those which prevailed in the
first flush of the gold discovery in the Caioma
mll-race, and they are right, for there Is no
parallel between the cases. The California
gold discovery of forty years ago was literally
a world disturbing event. 1t occurred at
time when no great wars or enterprises OF any
kind serving as outlets to surplus energy were
in progress, and the announcement stirred up
the adventurous in every part of the globe.
1t acted with equally electric effect upon the
spirit of commerce. A race began for San
Francisco. Hundreds of vessels were put on
the route with every imaginable kind of cargo.
Immense losses were incurred by merchants and
shippers, first, because they had to guess at the
market and often dispatched unstable goods;
secondly, because the arrival of all ships at
Yerba Buena was the signal for indiscrimnate
and helter-s SHELTER assertions. Often every soul
on board, from the loblolly-boy to the captain,
set off for the mines. 1t was scarcely possible
to find shipkeepers no matter what wages were
offered. Ten dollars day was refused for
stevedoring, and 'longshoremen would hardly
accept the cargo for the labor Of unloading it,.
Ten dollars for an hours work was frequently
demanded in those times, and as promptly paid.
Scores of ships rotted at their anchors. Some
broke adrift, went ashore, and being left where
they stranded, were in time buried under the
constantly growing city. Some which lay at
wharves were served in the same way. They
were not always completely unoaded. Several
years ago, for example, while street repairs
4 l. 4. IL
lower part of San Francisco) the hull of one Of
these buried vessels was uncovered, and in it
were found several cases Of champagne which
had been lying there since 40 or 80. 1t is a
curious fact that even when prices generally
were highest, liquors and wines remained com.
paraGvely cheap. The books kept at Suffers
Fort show that in '49, when pair of gum
boots cost 81 8, pound Of tallow candles SO so,
box of German matches 81, nails 81 pound,
pickles from So to So bottle, and 50 on in
like proportion, there was plenty of champagne
| to be had at S25 the basket The explanation
of this is that all shippers naturally dispatched
wines and liquors as miners staples sure of a
market. The result was to glut the market
with "wet goods.n But many other things
which were needed at the mines never got there
because Of the lack OF transportation and the
famine in the San Francisco labor market
caused the loss OF incalculable quantities OF
valuable merchandise. At one time the greater
part Of cargo of plug tobacco was used to
mend the streets, hundreds OF boxes being
| dumped into mnd-holes and employed to build
crossings with.
The waste in these ways must have been
enormous from first to last, but nobody has
ever 50 much a. tried 30 compute IL, and any
sueh attempt would be idle in the circum-
stances. In that mighty CONFUSION (for 1t was
nothing less) men never stopped to estilnate
losses Of any kind. The four great fires Of
San Francisco swept away scores Of millions,
but the heaviest losers knew that recovery was
en3x grestien sf.asuck and persistaaee, and