those of the Pactolus and Tagus, and the facts evidenced by geological and mining experiences, we cannot hesitate in giving an unbiassed opinion in favour of the greater chances of those companies which limit their adventure to alluvial diggings, and do not encumber themselves with machinery for rock-mining and quartz-crushing-by all experience, a very uncertain source of profit, while a certain one of expense. As a general fact, the richness of the detritus and alluvium is by no means a certain indication of the richness of the parent rock. Generally speaking, gold-veins are only rich superficially, and it is difficult to say, in alluvia so long lying untouched as those of California and Australia, how long they may have been in accumulating, or how much of the gold may not have been borne away with them-even to the last nugget-from the parent rock. All experience and all science seem to point out to mere digging and washing as the safest means of obtaining gold. The precious metal, indeed, appears to have been sown broadcast on the surface of some lands, as if to invite colonisation. So much for certain suggestive points in the art of practical golddigging, the search for auriferous deposits, or "prospecting," as it is termed in Australia, the nature and character of the alluvia, and the elimination of gold even when invisible to the naked eye. There is, we regret to add, a great fund of thoughtful interest and anxiety in the pictures given by Governor Latrobe, in the "Further Papers,” and in the letters of individual correspondents to the newspapers, of the total disorganisation of society that has taken place in Australia, as a result of this sudden and great discovery of auriferous deposits. For some time the impulse given to emigration was by no means such as might have been expected from the nature of these discoveries. The English and Scotch are slow to believe in golden visions. The Irish had not, generally speaking, the means to emigrate. The reality of the vast gold produce becoming, however, definitely known and generally understood, emigration has latterly been carried on on so extensive a scale, that ships trading to all parts of the world have been put upon the Australian line, a new line of screw-steamers has been brought into existence, and the Cunard Company has opened a line of first-class steamers from Liverpool to Australia, via Chagres and Panama. At the same time, the attention and the energies of government have been directed to the protection in the colony of the usual branches of industry and more ordinary sources of wealth, to obviating the evils of an increased expenditure and prices of necessaries of life, to the appointment of commissioners, the good order of the population, the granting of licenses, the return of revenue, the establishment of a royal mint, the shipment of gold, the augmentation of salaries, the embarrassments caused by the flow of the population to the gold-diggings, and the effects of the recent discoveries on all branches of the community, and even on the carrying on of government itself. The vast emigration now in progress, new and more decided port regulations to prevent desertion from merchant-vessels, the organisation of an efficient police force, the increase of pay to public officers, and promised military aid from the home government, in the shape of troops of the line, Irish constabulary, and pensioners, will soon remedy many existing evils. According to a statement published in the Melbourne Argus, of March 4th, 1852, the total yield of the Victoria gold-fields up to that period stood as follows: Estimated amount in private hands in the towns Estimated amount in the hands of diggers and others on the Total 24,000 80,000 Or, 54,439lb. 2 oz.-544 cwt. 39lb. 2 oz.-27 tons 4 cwt. 39lb. 2 oz.* Gold conveyed by private hands, and which has not passed at the Customs, is not included in this estimate. Mr. Robert Hunt, in his Lecture on the "History and Statistics of Gold," estimates that the Sydney gold-mines produced, £ S. From 29th May, 1851, to 31st Oct., 1851, 67,152 oz. of gold, value 214,886 0 257,855 7 464,668 15 In the Victoria district, to the end of December, 1851, In December there was shipped from Victoria . value 75,324 0 145,116 oz. 75,188 But Mr. Hunt justly remarks, that as only about two-fifths of the gold realised is sent by government escort, there is much difficulty in arriving at the actual amount.† We are not among those who entertain any apprehensions from this great influx of gold. The vast increase and diffusion of population, the wear and tear of precious metals, the increased consumption in the useful and ornamental arts, the example of the past, the new countries and populations opened to civilisation and commerce in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, China, &c., &c., all present circumstances that will more than counterbalance any such influx for the present. On the contrary, the supply appears to have come providentially to meet the wants and demands of new and rising generations of men. At the most, even after the lapse of time, and supposing the supply still to be going on, the relations of gold to silver might alone undergo some necessary change; but even that would be put off to an indefinite period, by coining gold moneys of small value, say five shilling and half-crown pieces, or even florins and shillings. The Turks have gold coins of five piastres, or about the value of a shilling. The Chinese, on the contrary, have as yet very little gold currency. Such a coinage in this country would tend materially, by increasing the use and consumption of gold, to keep up balance of its value as compared with that of silver. * Total value sterling, 1,959,810l. the † According to a still later and apparently authentic statement, the production at the Victoria mines was steadily increasing, and was now estimated at 100,000%. per week, or at the rate of more than 5,000,000l. per annum. YOUNG TOM HALL'S HEART-ACHES AND HORSES. CHAPTER XXXV. OUR Tom went to bed with a desperate heart-ache; he thought he had never seen such a beauty as Laura, and how he should ever get on without her he couldn't for the life of him imagine. Angelena wasn't to be compared to her, and already he began to regard that volatile lady with other than feelings of affection. Then the fifty thousand pounds flashed across his mind and caused him to ponder. Pooh! he didn't believe she had it; at all events, it wouldn't be hers for nobody knew when; and Laura was worth half a hundred of her without a halfpenny. Then it occurred to him that Laura would have money-that the major wouldn't keep hounds if he wasn't rich; and as to his father's objection about Longwind's bill, Tom didn't see any reason why the major should take up Longwind's bill, so long as there was any chance of Longwind taking it up himself. Tom thought it showed caution rather than poverty, and liked the major the better for it. Then it occurred to Tom, that his friend Padder, who was learned in the law, being in the second year of his clerkship with Mr. Habendum, had told him that heiresses' fortunes always went to their own children ; and if that was the case, Laura would be a catch, if not as great, at all events-beauty and all taken into consideration-as desirable as Angelena. Then the name of Squashington and Slumpington occurred to Tom's mind in the accommodating way that things do turn up in aid of Cupid's endeavours, and Tom began to doubt whether Laura mightn't be a better spec. than Angelena. He now recollected to have heard old Trueboy, the cashier, and his father, discussing a city article of the Times, stating that it would take little more than fifteen years of the existing production of gold to cause an alteration in the relations of property of fifty per cent.; and if Angelena's fifty thousand solid substantial sovereigns, as Mayor Fibs described them, went down one-half, and Squashington and Slumpington went up in like manner, why then Laura would be the best chance of the two. Of course, Tom, in these speculations, made no allowance for Laura's sisters' shares, who were still at Miss Birchtwig's; indeed, how could he, seeing he did not know of their existence? though Tights had been fully informed by Mrs. Hogslard, if the punch had not driven the information out of his head. Mrs. Lard-as Tights called her-and he had not quite made up their minds whether they should favour the Guineafowle speculation or not, and Tights thought he had got the length of his master's foot to a nicety. The house-clock here struck one, and Tom reverenced the sound on account of the lady. He wondered whether she was lying awake thinking of him. What a darling she was! How sweetly she smiled, and showed her beautiful teeth as she bade him good night, holding out her little ungloved hand for him to shake! He would have her, come what would. He didn't care a copper about his engagement to Angelena: it was quite clear she would throw him over, if she could get any one better -why shouldn't he do the same by her? Jug's, the detested Jug's portrait again presented itself to his mind, with Ruddles's "This is the gent -the right honourable gent that's a courtin' of the great heiress at the barracks." Hang her! he'd be done with her. What business had she to ride away with old Heartycheer, leaving him doubled up like a gibus hat? She didn't know but he might have been killed. Two o'clock found our friend in a profuse perspiration. He had fallen asleep and dreamt that the colonel had called him out, and he couldn't get rid of the idea. In his mind's eye, he was getting hurried on the box of a fly alongside of Major Fibs, while an enormous mountain of a man, enveloped in a military cloak, assisted by the shoulder of the flyman, had at length succeeded in squeezing sideways into the fly, carrying a brace of ominous-looking articles in blue bathing-dresses, that too evidently showed by their shape to be pistols. Tom was terrified, for he had no taste for fighting; and though he awoke to the consciousness that it was only a dream, he felt most forcibly that the dream might be the precursor of reality. He thought he had better not try any tricks on with Angelena; and then how his heart wrung him to think that he must give up all thoughts of the lovely, angelic, blue-eyed beauty, who now seemed more necessary to his existence than ever! He felt as if he had been kidnapped. Balmy sleep, nature's soft restorer, again befriended him, and in the interval that followed he dreamt that old Trueboy, the bank cashier, had negotiated a compromise with the colonel; after giving him all the dirty five-pound notes in the drawer, was now shovelling the sovereigns over the counter with a copper shovel, for him to put in a sack which seemed to have no bottom; for the more Trueboy shovelled over, the more the colonel seemed to want, till Tom, dreading the result of the operation on the bank funds, shrieked out, "That's enough! that's enough!" in a voice that completely startled himself and sounded throughout the house. After this exploit he fell asleep, from which he was aroused by Tights with his tops and hot water. There was unusual commotion in the house, caused as well by the unwonted company-making as by the preparations for the hunt and the over-night inebriety of Mrs. Hogslard, the cook. Tights and she had made a night of it, with the punch and her private bottle of spirits; and now, when she ought to have been up and doing, she was tossing and tumbling about in bed with a desperate headache. Mrs. Hogslard was one of those wretched country cooks whom everybody has had, and no one keeps; and she was a perfect prodigy in all the establishments in a country office. She could sit behind Mrs. Chatterbox, the registeroffice woman's screen, and tell tales that were enough to horrify a hearer, lest his own establishment should be laid bare the same way-what masters prowled about the kitchens and places where they had no business -what mistresses were "nasty covetous bodies," and stinted for beer or butter, or locked their tea-caddies, and didn't allow meat luncheons or hot suppers-what butlers agreed with the housekeepers, and what didn't -who were supposed to have false keys, and who to have been false to the lady's-maid; from which valuable information Mrs. Chatterbox-herself an old cook-would draw such deductions as enabled her to place the intelligent "ladies and gentlemen," as she called the servants, who honoured her with their custom, most advantageously. In return for all this, Mrs. Chatterbox used to mention Mrs. Hogslard, casually, to parties who applied in the middle of a term, as a person "wot thoroughly under stood cooking, and had lived in most respectable families;" leaving it to the inquirers to find out why it was that so experienced a person was out of place. And this suited Mrs. Hogslard almost as well as regular service, for she made harvest wages, and had greater indulgences as a stranger than she would had she been one of the establishment. She had been a fortnight at the major's, and not having had a chance of any of the house drink before, had been unable to resist temptation, especially when instigated by so interesting a companion as Tights. Breakfast, however, being a much less formidable meal than dinner, and one which most women can assist in preparing, things were pretty forward by the time our master of hounds had got himself into his best boots and breeches, and arranged the loosely-tied blue-silk scarf under his buff vest, that he thought contrasted so well with it and his green huntbuttoned coat. Our Tom, aided by Tights, made what he thought a most killing toilette. After half a dozen "fail-yars," he at length accomplished a wide-extending, cream-coloured Joinville above a pink, race-horse patterned shirt with gold fox-head studs. He had got his thick thighs into leathers; while Tights, who was much given to buying recipes (with his master's money, of course), had tried his last guinea's worth on Tom's tops, and made them a red-hot colour. "Why, what an extraordinary colour you've got my boots!" exclaimed Tom, as Tights withdrew the napkin with which they were covered. "All is serene, sir, replied Tights, hissing, as he dusted them over with the napkin-"all is serene, sir," repeated he, setting them down; "the Melton gents would give any money for such tops, but I wish they may get them, that's all." Tom was bad to please in the matter of coats; he wanted to put on his pink, but Tights wouldn't hear of such a thing, alleging that it would be the ruin of both their reputations if such a thing was known at Melton. 66 'Nobody ever hunted with currant-jelly dogs," as he profanely called the major's hounds, "in pink." The major himself wore green, as Tights knew; for he had been seeing how he looked in the major's coat, as he found it lying on the back kitchen table. Tom then proposed breakfasting in pink, and changing after, but this Tights also strenuously resisted, on the plea that it would look disrespectful to the major, first showing in scarlet, as if Tom thought he kept foxhounds, and then changing; and Tom, having a high opinion of Tights' judgment, was at last reluctantly obliged to content himself with laying the scarlet over a chair-back, and leaving the door open for all passers-by to see. Having then tried on a dark-brown duffle, and a red-brown, and a pepper-and-salt duffle, and a black saxony jacket, all with most liberal sleeves, at length chose the red-brown duffle as the gayest of the whole. When he got down, he found the beautiful subject of his dreams ready to receive him, though, by some strange circumstance, none of the others were down. Perhaps Laura had had the first turn of the maid, who certainly had done her full justice, making her beautiful hair shine like the raven's wing, while the blue Fremantle dress stood imposingly out, in a way that none but spic-and-span new things will stand. Tom was quite enchanted, and stood gaping for utterance as, having again given him her hand on wishing him good morning, Laura |