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CHAPTER ONE from THE NORTHERN MAIDU MARIE POTTS For 12,000 years before the gold rush, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans lived in the land later known as California--in fact, California was more densely populated than any other region north of Mexico. They were a diverse people, belonging to more than five hundred independent tribal groups and speaking widely disparate languages. The Northern Maidu Indians lived in present-day Lassen, Butte, and Plumas counties, near what would become gold country. Marie Potts, a Northern Maidu tribe member born in 1895, gave this account in 1977 of her ancestors' life. OUR COUNTRY WAS BEAUTIFUL, with vast open valleys or meadows--Mountain Meadow, Hebe Meadow, Big Meadow (now covered by Lake Almanor), and others. The surrounding mountains, their flanks mantled with forests, were covered with snow most of the year, such as Barter Mountain, and, looming above all, Mount Lassen, where the snow never completely melted. Among the mountains were many fine lakes where there was good fishing, and plenty of deer roamed from valley to valley across ridges covered with sugar and ponderosa pine, fir, cedar, spruce, and tamaracks. èAmong these grew brush--manzanita, buck bushes, and squaw carpet, a shrub that grew close to the ground, with leaves like holly. There were all kinds of berry bushes on both meadows and hillsides: raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, gooseberries, sometimes thimbleberries, and, of course, there were huckleberries. The chokecherries we ate after mashing--then spit the seeds out. Our country was rich in nature's food, there for the taking. We had a good climate of the kind that makes mountain people energetic and strong, and not enervating, as in the hot summers in the GreatValley. The winter snow cover was often six to eight feet deep. "Big Meadow" might give to people now a picture of a vast hayfield, but this meadow and others was more like a swamp, with mounds and hillocks in places. It had many springs around the borders; they ran along in pools rich with fish, mostly trout. It is easy to see why we did not live down in the meadows, but on higher ground along the borders. I also remember as a child living in the cedar bark house with my grandparents. How wonderful it was, lying awake at night sometimes, to hear the coyotes bark, and the hoot owls uttering their calls among the trees. Sometimes there would be the running clatter of squirrels on the bark slabs above us; and in spring and summer, just as it grew light before the sun rose, there came the enchantment of the bird chorus, the orchestra of the Great Spirit all around us. That clean pine smell on the morning wind--where can we find it now? from SIXTEEN MONTHS AT THE GOLD DIGGINGS DANIEL B. WOODS Daniel B. Woods, a Philadelphia school teacher who decided to try his luck in the California diggings in 1849, quickly discovered mining was extremely hard work--not to mention monotonous and physically exhausting. Like the vast majority of miners, he never got rich; after sixteen months he calculated that he had averaged only $7.28 a day. His diary, published in 1851, described his frustration as golden dreams faded into leaden realities. July 8th, Sunday. All the miners upon the bar, with the exception of one man, who is working by himself below, have laid aside their labors for the day. This is partly at least, owing to a regard for its sacredness. And when may we be so much sustained by the encouragements, cheered by the promises, or influenced by the restraints of religion, as in the circumstances in which we are now placed? Religion--Heaven's most precious gift to man--comes and offers to lead us, and to be with us in all our weary exile from home. JULY 9TH. To-day we have made $20 each. One of the conclusions at which we are rapidly arriving is that the chances of our making a fortune in the gold mines are about the same as those in favor of our drawing a prize in a lottery. No kind of work is so uncertain....Two foreigners, who had been some time in the mines, began to work their respective claims, leaving a small space between them. The question arose to which of them this space belonged. As they could not amicably settle the dispute, they agreed to leave it to the decision of an èAmerican who happened by, and who had not yet done an hour's work in the mines. He measured off ten feet--which is allowed by custom--to each of the claimants, taking for his trouble the narrow strip of land lying between them. In a few hours, the larger claims, belonging to the old miners, were abandoned as useless, while the new miner discovered a deposit which yielded him $7435. JULY 10TH. We made three dollars each to-day. This life of severe hardship and exposure has affected my health. Our diet consists of hard bread, flour, which we eat half-cooked, and salt pork, with occasionally a salmon which we purchase of the Indians. Vegetables are not to be procured. Our feet are wet all day, while a hot sun shines down upon our heads, and the very air parches the skin like the hot air of an oven. Our drinking water comes down to us thoroughly impregnated with the mineral substances washed through the thousand cradles above us. After our days of labor, exhausted and faint, we retire--if this word may be applied to the simple act of lying down in our clothes--robbing our feet of their boots to make a pillow of them, and wrapping our blankets about us, on a bed of pine boughs, or on the ground, beneath the clear, bright stars of night. Near morning there is always a change in the temperature of the air, and several blankets become necessary. Then the feet and the hands of the novice in this business become blistered and lame, and the limbs are stiff. Besides all these causes of sickness, the anxieties and cares which wear away the life of so many men who leave their families to come to this land of gold contribute, in no small degree, to this same result. It may with truth be said, "the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." I have to-day removed to the top of the hill above the encampment, and beneath a large oak-tree, for the benefit of a cooler air and shade during the intense heat of noon. AUG. 20TH. After my last date I was prostrated at once by the acclimating disease of the country, and rendered as helpless as a child. All day and all night long I was alone under my oak, and without those kind attentions so necessary in sickness, and which can not be had here. I was reduced to a very low state, with but little hope, under the circumstances, of recovery. It did seem hard to lie down to die there, and to think that I was no more to see my beloved family. Yet I feared not to die. Indeed, I marked off the spot under the oak where my grave should be, and prayed for submission to God's righteous will, and that his love would protect and bless those dear to me. At this critical time, a gentleman from New Orleans, hearing of my case, came up to see me, and gave me a few pills, which, fortunately, he had with him. They checked the disease, and after a few hours I could eat a bird shot and cooked for me by a kind friend. Not soon shall I forget this noble-hearted friend, B. Rough as a grisly bear, he was yet one of nature's noblemen. At home he filled, at one time, the office of sheriff. He said that the office cost him too much, and was making him poor. If he was sent to seize a destitute woman's effects for rent, he would be sure to pay that rent, and then would send her a bag of flour from his own farm. Thus we learn that many of the most valuable traits of character and excellencies of heart lie, like the purest gold, concealed beneath a rough surface. Yesterday morning we reached Weaver's Creek, and, after prospecting some hours, located ourselves on the spot where we now are at work, with some good prospect of success. Just below us is a Georgia miner, who showed me to-day nine pounds of gold he made last week with the assistance of two hired èmen. The mountains here are very precipitous and abrupt, hanging over our heads in wild grandeur. The creek is only accessible through wild ravines and over steep mountains. Owing to their great depth, and their being shut up on all sides by mountains so lofty that the sun rises two hours later and sets two hours earlier than upon the plains, the heat is most intense. We have spent our first day in making preparations for our work. W. is now putting up a brush arbor, to guard us more effectually against the heat of the sun. WEAVER'S CREEK, AUG. 21ST. Our mining company has been to-day increased, two others having joined us, making our number five. One of these has been engaged in walling in a spring where we obtain our drinking-water-another is making a cradle. The others have been employed in removing the stones and top soil, and carrying the auriferous dirt on handbarrows, made of hides, down to the edge of the water, ready to be washed. From every indication, we have "struck a rich lead." We find much gold on the rocks: on one I counted twenty-five scales. AUG. 22ND. We have finished our cradle, and washed a little dirt this forenoon, which yielded us about $10 in all. Our hopes are bright for the morrow. AUG. 23D. How is "the gold become dim!" After all our preparations and hopes, our toil early and late, toil of the most laborious kind, digging, down in the channel of the river till the water was up to our knees, giving ourselves barely time to eat, we have made but $4 each. We sat down upon the rocks, and looked at the small ridge of gold in the pan, and then at each other. One fell to swearing, another to laughing; I tried to say some encouraging things. Our way indeed is dark, and great are our difficulties, and oft-repeated our failures, and we experience the bitterness of the "Hope deferred which maketh the heart sick," but our motto must be press on. The motives which induced us to come here were good--our object is good--then, trusting in God's merciful providence, let us persevere. One young man near us has just died. He was without companion or friend--alone in his tent. Not even his name could be discovered. We buried him, tied down his tent, leaving his effects within. Thus is a home made doubly desolate. Years will pass, and that loved son, or brother, or husband still be expected, and the question still repeated, Why don't he come? Right below me, upon a root of our wide-spreading oak, is seated an old man of three-score and ten years. He left a wife and seven children at home, whose memory he cherishes with a kind of devotion unheard of before. He says when he is home-sick he can not cry, but it makes him sick at his stomach. He is an industrious old man, but has not made enough to buy his provisions, and we have given him a helping hand. Is it surprising that many fly to gambling, and more to drink, to drown their disappointments? To-day I have weighed my little store of gold, after paying all expenses, and find it amounts, after over six weeks of hard labor, to $35. from A FRONTIER LADY SARAH ROYCE Sarah Royce arrived in California in October of 1849. She eventually settled in Grass Valley but first visited a mining camp in the Sierra foothills. She gave this account to her son, historian Josiah Royce, in 1879. èAnd now began my first experience in a California mining camp. The sense of safety that came from having arrived where there was no danger of attacks from Indians, or of perishing of want or of cold on the desert, or in the mountains, was at first so restful that I was willing, for awhile, to throw off anxiety; and, like a child fixing a play-house, I sang as I arranged our few comforts in our tent. Indeed, part of the time it was fixing a play-house; for Mary was constantly pattering about at my side; and often, things were arranged for her convenience and amusement. Still, there was a lurking feeling of want of security from having only a cloth wall between us and out of doors. I had heard the sad story (which, while it shocked, reassured us) of the summary punishment inflicted in a neighboring town upon three thieves, who had been tried by a committee of citizens and, upon conviction, all hung. The circumstances had given to the place the name of Hang-Town. We were assured that, since then, no case of stealing had occurred in the northern mines; and I had seen, with my own eyes, buck-skin purses half full of gold-dust, lying on a rock near the road-side, while the owners were working some distance off. So I was not afraid of robbery; but it seemed as if some impertinent person might so easily intrude, or hang about, in a troublesome manner. But I soon found I had no reason to fear. Sitting in my tent sewing, I heard some men cutting wood up a hill behind us. One of them called out to another "Look out not to let any sticks roll that way, there's a woman and child in that tent." "Aye, aye, we won't frighten them" was the reply, all spoken in pleasant, respectful tones. A number of miners passed every morning and afternoon, to and from their work; but none of them stared obtrusively. One, I observed, looked at Mary with interest a time or two, but did not stop, till one day I happened to be walking with her near the door when he paused, bowed courteously, and said, "Excuse me madam, may I speak to the little girl? We see so few ladies and children in California, and she is about the size of a little sister I left at home." "Certainly," I said, leading her towards him. His gentle tones and pleasant words easily induced her to shake hands, and talk with him. He proved to be a young physician, who had not long commenced practice at home, when the news of gold discovery in California induced him to seek El Dorado, hoping thus to secure, more speedily, means of support for his widowed mother and the younger members of the family. His partner in work was a well-educated lawyer; and another of their party was a scientist who had been applying his knowledge of geology and mineralogy in exploring; and had lately returned from a few miles south with a report so favorable they intended in a day or two to go and make a claim on his newly discovered ground. Here, then, was a party of California miners, dressed in the usual mining attire, and carrying pick, shovel, and pans to and from their work; who yet were cultured gentlemen. I soon found that this was by no means a solitary instance. But a much larger number of the miners belonged to other very valuable classes of society. Merchants, mechanics, farmers were all there in large numbers; so that in almost every mining camp there was enough of the element of order to control, or very much influence, the opposite forces. These facts soon became apparent to me, and, ere long, I felt as secure in my tent with the curtain tied in front as I had formerly felt with locked and bolted doors. There was, of course, the other element as elsewhere; but they themselves knew that it was safer for law and order to govern; and, with a few desperate exceptions, were willing to let the lovers of order enjoy their rights and wield their influence. And the desperate èexceptions were, for the time, so over-awed by the severe punishment some of their number had lately suffered that, for a while, at least, in those early days, life and property were very safe in the mines; unless indeed you chose to associate with gamblers and desperados, in which case you of course constantly risked your money and your life. But, the same is true in the heart of New York, Philadelphia, or London. from A MINER'S SUNDAY IN COLOMA CHARLES B. GILLESPIE Sundays offered a break from the daily drudgery and competitiveness of mining. Along with a chance to rest, read, write letters, bathe, and wash clothes, miners also spent some of their hard-earned gold dust. They congregated at bars, gambling houses, auctions, dances, and even the occasional circus. "A Miner's Sunday in Coloma," from the gold rush journal of Charles B. Gillespie, appeared in Century Magazine in 1891. The principal street of Coloma was alive with crowds of moving men, passing and repassing, laughing, talking, and all appearing in the best of humor: Negroes from the Southern States swaggering in the expansive feeling of run-away freedom;mulattoes from Jamaica trudging arm-in-arm with Kanakas from Hawaii; Peruvians and Chilians claiming affinity with the swarthier Mexicans; Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians fraternizing with one another and with the cockney fresh from the purlieus of St. Giles; an Irishman, with the dewdrop still in his eye, tracing relationship with the ragged Australian; Yankees from the Penobscot chatting and bargaining with the genial Oregonians; a few Celestials scattered here and there, their pigtails and conical hats recalling the strange pictures that took my boyish fancy while studying the geography of the East; last of all, a few Indians, the only indigenous creatures among all these exotics, lost, swallowed up--out of place like "rari nantes in gurgite vasto." It was a scene that no other country could ever imitate. Antipodes of color, race, religion, language, government, condition, size, capability, strength, and morals were there, within that small village in the mountains of California, all impressed with but one purpose--impelled with but one desire. A group of half a dozen Indians especially attracted my attention. They were strutting about in all the glory of newly acquired habiliments; but with this distinction--that one suit of clothes was sufficient to dress the whole crowd. The largest and best-looking Indian had appropriated the hat and boots, and without other apparel walked about as proudly as any city clerk. Another was lost in an immense pair of pantaloons. A third sported nothing but a white shirt with ruffled bosom. A fourth flaunted a blue swallow-tailed coat, bespangled with immense brass buttons. A fifth was decked with a flashy vest; while the sixth had nothing but a red bandana, which was carefully wrapped around his neck. Thus what would scarcely serve one white man just as effectually accommodated six Indians. The street was one continuous din. Thimble-riggers, French monte dealers, or string-game tricksters were shouting aloud at every corner: "Six ounces, gentlemen, no one can tell where the little joker is!" or "Bet on the jack, the jack's the winning card! Three ounces no man can turn up the jack!" or "Here's the place to git your money back! The veritable string game! Here it goes! Three, six, ètwelve ounces no one can put his finger in the loop!" But rising above all this ceaseless clamor was the shrill voice of a down-east auctioneer, who, perched on a large box in front of a very small canvas booth, was disposing of the various articles in the shebang behind him, "all at a bargain." What a ragged, dirty, unshaven, good-natured assemblage!-swallowing the stale jests of the "crier" with the greatest guffaws, and bidding with all the recklessness of half-tipsy brains and with all the confidence of capacious, well-stuffed bags. Behind a smaller box, to the left of the Yankee, was a Jew in a red cap and scarlet flannel shirt, busy with his scales and leaden weights, to weigh out the "dust" from the various purchasers. There was no fear of the weights being heavier than the law allows, or that the tricky Jew by chance should place the half-ounce on the scales when there was but a quarter due. That there should be a few pennyweights too many made no difference; it is only the hungry purse that higgles about weights or prices. A little bad brandy and a big purse made a miner wonderfully important and magnanimous; and he regarded everything below an ounce as unworthy of attention. This German Jew was also barkeeper. Beside him were a few tin cups, and a whole army of long and short necked, gaily labeled bottles, from which he dealt out horrible compounds for fifty cents a drink. His eye brightened as he perceived coming up the street a crowd of rollicking, thirsty, sunburned fellows, fresh from their "diggins" among the hills. But the quick eye of the auctioneer also singled them out and read their wants. "Here's a splendid pair of brand-new boots! cowhide, double-soled, triple-pegged, water-proof boots! The very thing for you, sir, fit your road-smashers exactly; just intended, cut out, made for your mud-splashers alone; going for only four ounces and a half--four and a half! and gone--for four and a half ounces; walk up here and weigh out your dust." "Wet your boots, old boy!" sang out the companions of the purchaser. The barkeeper, with his weights already on the scales, exclaimed, "Shtand back, poys, and let de shentlemens to de bar." The newcomers approached, crowding tumultuously around their companion of the boots, who, drawing out a long and well-filled buckskin bag, tossed it to the expectant Jew with as much carelessness as if it were only dust. "Thar's the bag, old feller! weigh out the boots and eight lickers. Come, boys, call for what you like; it's my treat--go it big, fellers! all one price." "Vat ye takes?" asks the barkeeper, after weighing out the amount due and handing the purse back to its owner. "Brandy straight," "brandy punch," "brandy sling," "gin cocktail," and thus they went on, each calling for a different drink. Then the bargaining began. Butcher-knives for crevicing, tin pans, shovels, picks, clothing of all colors, shapes, and sizes; hats and caps of every style; coffee, tea, sugar, bacon, flour, liquors of all grades in stiff-necked bottles--in a word, almost everything that could be enumerated--were disposed of at a furious rate; so that in an hour's time the contents of the little grocery were distributed among the jolly crowd. è Suddenly there was a great noise of shouting and hurrahing away up the street, and, the crowd heaving and separating upon either side, on came a dozen half-wild, bearded miners, fine, wiry, strapping fellows, on foaming horses, lashing them to the utmost, and giving the piercing scalp-halloo of the Comanches! They suddenly halted in front of Winter's hotel, and while the greater number dismounted and tumultuously entered the barroom for refreshment, a few of the remainder made themselves conspicuous by acts of daring horsemanship--picking up knives from the ground while at full gallop, Indian-like whirling on the sides of their steeds, then up and off like the wind and, while apparently dashing into the surrounding crowd, suddenly reining in their horses upon their haunches and whirling them upon their hind legs, then without a stop dashing off as furiously in the opposite direction. These few proved to be Doniphan's wild riders, who even excelled the Mexican caballeros in their feats of horsemanship. At last, all together once more they came sweeping down the street, apparently reckless of life and limb. As they passed, the scurrying footmen cheered them on with great good nature. The crowd closed again and in a brief time everything was as restless as ever. Passing up the street, I came to a large unfinished frame-house, the sashless windows and doorway crowded with a motley crew, apparently intent upon something solemn happening within. After a little crowding and pushing I looked over the numberless heads in front, and saw--could I believe my eyes?--a preacher, as ragged and as hairy as myself, holding forth to an attentive audience. Though the careless and noisy crowd was surging immediately without, all was quiet within. He spoke well and to the purpose and warmed every one with his fine and impassioned delivery. He closed with a benediction but prefaced it by saying: "There will be divine service in this house next Sabbath--if, in the meantime, I hear of no new diggin's!" The audience silently streamed out, the greater part directing their steps to a large, two-story frame-house across the street. This was the hotel par excellence of the town; one could easily perceive that by its long white colonnade in front, and its too numerous windows in the upper story. A large saloon occupied the whole front of the building....There was a perfect babel of noises! English, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Kanakas, Chilians, all were talking in their respective languages. Glasses were jingling, money was rattling, and, crowning all, two fiddlers in a distant corner were scraping furiously on their instruments, seemingly the presiding divinities of this variegated pandemonium! Crowding, inch by inch, into one of these motley groups, I found myself at last in front of a large table, neatly covered with blue cloth, upon which was a mass of Mexican silver dollars piled up in ounce or sixteen-dollar stacks. Immediately facing me was the banker; a well-dressed, middle-aged, quiet little man, with one of the most demure countenances imaginable. Beside him was the croupier, a very boy, whose duty it was to rake in the winnings and pay out the losses, which he did with wonderful dexterity. Fronting the dealer, and dividing the silver into two equal portions, was a large Chinese box of exquisite construction. Upon it were ranged half a dozen packs of French and Spanish cards, several large masses of native gold, and a dozen or more buckskin bags of all sizes and conditions containing dust. Dollars and half-dollars were piled upon these purses--some with a few, others with a greater number thereon. One unacquainted with the game might guess èfor a day and not be able to hit upon the object of this arrangement, but a close observer might read elation or depression in the anxious eyes of the players as the weight upon these bags was either diminished or increased. These purses were in pawn; the dollars and half-dollars were the counters wherewith the banker numbered the ounces or half-ounces that might be owing to the bank. "There's another millstone on the pile," groaned a thin-faced, watery-eyed little fellow in a hickory shirt and walnut pantaloons, as he saw another dollar added to his dust-bag. "Take off two o'them air buttons," laughed a fat-faced man in red shirt and Chinese cap. "I won two ounces on the deuce; another bet like that, and my bag's not for your mill, old feller!" The cards were all out, and the "old feller" was shuffling them for a new deal; during which operation he cast a furtive glance about the table to see if there were any new customers to bite at his game, or, perhaps, to note if any of those who had bitten seemed to be cooling off--a weakness which he hastened to counteract by singing out: "Barkeeper!" and inquiring "What will the gentlemen take to drink?" This invitation was given in such a quiet and insinuating manner that one hesitated to decline for fear of wounding the delicate sensibilities of the banker. Each called for what he wished, and all concluded to "fight the tiger" a little while longer. The sprightly barkeeper was back in a twinkling, with a large waiter covered with glasses. These he distributed with wonderful dexterity, remembering perfectly what each one had ordered; so that, much to the player's surprise, he found his own glass chosen from among twenty and placed before him. That barkeeper had a niche in his brain for every man at the table. By this time my appetite began to warn me of the near approach of noon. There were any number of eating-houses and booths, but which to choose I could not tell. However, suffering myself to be guided in a measure by the crowd which was now streaming to the other side of the river, I soon found myself in front of "Little's Hotel," the largest frame building on the right bank of the river, serving in the treble capacity of post-office, store, and tavern. Here I found all my acquaintances, who, like me, were on the search for a good dinner; and who had been induced to go there by the encomiums of "olderhands," who every Sunday had made a custom of visiting Coloma for the express purpose of having one good dinner in the week....The dinner was really excellent, and every one appeared heartily to enjoy it. When the edge of my appetite had in a measure been ground away, I took occasion to look up and down the table, and I could but wonder how I happened among such a collection of uncouth men. The contrast was certainly startling between the snow-white tablecloth, china dishes, silver forks and spoons and the unwashed, half-famished, sunburnt crowd of hungry and bearded miners. At home, one would associate such a crowd with the deck of a Mississippi steamboat, or the platform of an Alleghany River raft, with iron forks and spoons and tin plates spread on a rough pine board for a table; but here they lorded it over every luxury that money could procure. There was not a single coat in the whole crowd, and certainly not over half a dozen vests, and neither neckties nor collars. But then, to make amends for these deficiencies, there were any number and variety of fancy shirts, from the walnut-stained èhomespun of the Missourian to the embroidered blouse of the sallow Frenchman. Never before was I so fully impressed with the truth of the old adage that "dress makes the man," for I doubt if the whole world could present to a stranger's eye a crowd of rougher or apparently lower characters than were then seated around that hospitable table. And yet many of these men were lawyers and physicians, and the rest principally farmers and mechanics from the "States"; who now with their long beards and fierce mustaches looked anything else than the quiet citizens they were at home. Men who formerly were effeminacy itself in dress and manners were here changed into rough and swaggering braves, with a carelessness of appearance and language that a semi-civilized condition of society alone could permit. from THE JOURNAL OF HENRY D. THOREAU HENRY DAVID THOREAU Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), born in Concord, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1837. A transcendentalist and adamant nonconformist, he lived for two years in a self-built cabin at Walden Pond in Massachusetts and was once jailed overnight for protesting slavery by refusing to pay a poll tax. Walden and Civil Disobedience, his two most famous works, resulted from these experiences. Thoreau began keeping a journal in the 1830s at the suggestion of his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it eventually reached more than two million words and filled fourteen volumes. Thoughtful and iconoclastic, Thoreau was not fully appreciated until years after his death. This excerpt from his journal was dated February 1, 1852. The recent rush to California and the attitude of the world, even of its philosophers and prophets, in relation to it appears to me to reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to get their living by the lottery of gold-digging without contributing any value to society, and that the great majority who stay at home justify them in this both by precept and example! It matches the infatuation of the Hindoos who have cast themselves under the car of Juggernaut. I know of no more startling development of the morality of trade and all the modes of getting a living than the rush to California affords. Of what significance the philosophy, or poetry, or religion of a world that will rush to the lottery of California gold-digging on the receipt of the first news, to live by luck, to get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, i.e. of slaveholding, without contributing any value to society? And that is called enterprise, and the devil is only a little more enterprising! The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puffball. The hog that roots his own living, and so makes manure, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. Going to California. It is only three thousand miles nearer to hell. I will resign my life sooner than live by luck. The world's raffle. A subsistence in the domains of nature a thing to be raffled for! No wonder that they gamble there. I never heard that they did anything else there. What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions! The conclusion will be that mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And who would interfere to cut it down. And have all the precepts in all the bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable invention of the Yankee race only an improved èmuck-rake?--patented too! If one came hither to sell lottery tickets, bringing satisfactory credentials, and the prizes were seats in heaven, this world would buy them with a rush. Did God direct us so to get our living, digging where we never planted,--and He would perchance reward us with lumps of gold? It is a text, oh! for the Jonahs of this generation, and yet the pulpits are as silent as immortal Greece, silent, some of them, because the preacher is gone to California himself. The gold of California is a touchstone which has betrayed the rottenness, the baseness, of mankind. Satan, from one of his elevations, showed mankind the kingdom of California, and they entered into a compact with him at once. Copyright © 1997 California Council for the Humanities. All rights reserved.