LIFE’S BATTLE MARCH.
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BY MRS. J. H. THOMAS, (L. L. M.)
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A mighty throng are they who gird
Their armor for the strife;
And, with strong hearts, go forth to win
The battle-field of Life.
The good, the firm, the true, the brave,
The beautiful, are there;
Beside the stern, dark warrior’s helm
Float woman’s tresses fair.
Rose-lips are wreathed with lofty smiles,
Pale cheeks with ardor glow;
And fragile forms from easeful halls
To death or vict’ry go.
Nor fly they from the noontide heat,
To Pleasure’s shaded bowers;
Firm fall the feet that trod, erewhile,
Among the dew-bright flowers.
To battle with Life’s ills they go—
Those hopeful hearts and strong—
Nor shrink they from the toilsome march,
To struggle fierce and long.
These lessons trite they all have conned:
The proudest hopes may fall;
And Beauty, Life, and Bloom repair
To Death’s great carnival—
Earth’s clinging loves may fade away,
Like half-forgotten dreams;
And trusting hearts grow dark and cold
As cypress-shaded streams—
The calmest brow may droop with grief—
The brightest lip may pale;
And eagle eyes grow dim with tears,
When Hate and Wrong prevail—
And yet most glorious words, I ween,
Are woven in the song,
That breathes from every heart and lip,
As sweep those ranks along.
That Wrong and Hate, though leagued with Might,
And Grief, and Pain, and Wo,
Can never crush the True and Right,
Those brave hearts joy to know.
To each calm, earnest, onward soul,
The lofty faith is given,
That every flower that fades on earth,
Far brighter blooms in Heaven.
They know that each encounter stern
With Sorrow makes them strong;
And cheerily their bold, true hearts,
Uplift the glorious song.
They joy to know that soon their tents
On Time’s dim shore will gleam;
That soon their steadfast ranks will stand
Beside Death’s sullen stream;
That soon from the Eternal Walls
Heaven’s silvery chime will sound;
And then Life’s myriad victors be
With God’s own glory crowned.
THE HARVEST OF GOLD.
Three years ago, one Mr. Smith, a gentleman engaged in iron-works in Australia, made his appearance at the Government House, Sydney, with a lump of gold. He offered, for a large sum of money, to point out where he had got it, and where more was to be found in abundance. The Government, however, thinking that this might be no more than a device, and that the lump produced might, in reality, have come from California, declined to buy a gold field in the dark, but advised Mr. Smith to unfold his tale, and leave his payment to the liberality of Government. This Mr. Smith refused to do, and there the matter ended.
On the third of April, 1851, Mr. Hargraves, who had recently returned from California, addressed the Government, stating that the result of his experience in that country had led him to expect gold in Australia; that the results of his exploring had been highly satisfactory; and that for the sum of five hundred pounds he would point out the precious districts. The same answer was returned that had disposed of Mr. Smith, but with an opposite effect; for Mr. Hargraves declaring himself “satisfied to leave the remuneration for his discovery to the liberal consideration of Government,” at once named the districts, which were Lewis Ponds, Summer-Hill Creek, and Macquarie River, in Bathurst and Wellington—the present Ophir. Mr. Hargraves was directed to place himself at once in communication with the Government Surveyor.
Meantime, the news began to be whispered about. A man who appeared in Bathurst with a lump of gold worth thirty pounds, which he had picked up, created a great sensation, and numbers hastened to see whether they could not do likewise. The Commissioner of Crown Lands became alarmed. He warned all those who had commenced their search, of the illegality of their proceedings, and made earnest application for efficient assistance, imagining that the doings in California were to be repeated in Bathurst, and that pillage and murder were to be the order of the day. The Government immediately took active measures for the maintenance of order. Troops were dispatched to the gold fields, and the Inspector-General of Police received a discretionary power to employ what force he thought proper.
Great was the excitement in Sydney upon the confirmation of all this intelligence. Hasty partings, deserted desks, and closed shops, multiplied in number. Every imaginable mode of conveyance was resorted to, and hundreds set off on foot.
On the fourteenth of May, the Government Surveyor reported that, in communication with Mr. Hargraves, he had visited the before-mentioned districts, and after three hours’ examination, “had seen quite enough”—gold was every where plentiful.
A proclamation was at once issued, forbidding any person to dig without a license, setting forth divers pains and penalties for disobedience. Licenses were to be obtained upon the spot, at the rate of thirty shillings per month, liable to future alteration. No licenses were granted to any one who could not produce a certificate of discharge from his last service, or otherwise give a satisfactory account of himself; and the descriptions of such as were refused were registered. A small body of mounted police were at the same time organized, who were paid at the somewhat curious rate of three shillings and three-pence per day, with rations, and lodgings when they could be procured. Fortunately, there was no attempt at disturbance, for the Governor in a dispatch states, “that the rush of people (most of them armed) was so great, that had they been disposed to resist, the whole of the troops and police would have been unable to cope with them.” The licenses, too, were all cheerfully paid for, either in coin or gold.
On the third of June, Mr. Hargraves (who, in the meantime, had received a responsible appointment) underwent an examination before the Legislative Council, when he stated that he was led to search in the neighborhood of Bathurst, by observing the similarity of the country to California. He found gold as soon as he dismounted. He found it everywhere; rode from the head of the Turon river to its confluence with the Macquarie, about one hundred miles; found gold over the whole extent; afterward found it all along the Macquarie. “Bathurst,” observed Mr. Hargraves, “is the most extraordinary place I ever saw. Gold is actually found lying on the ground, close to the surface.” And Mr. Commissioner Green, two days afterward, reported that “gold was found in every pan of earth taken up.”
But the most important event connected with these discoveries, and which is without parallel in the world’s history, remains to be told.
On the sixteenth of July, The Bathurst Free Press, commenced a leader with the following passage:—
“Bathurst is mad again! The delirium of golden fever has returned with increased intensity. Men meet together, stare stupidly at one another, and wonder what will happen next. Everybody has a hundred times seen a hundred weight of flour. A hundred weight of sugar is an everyday fact; but a hundred weight of gold is a phrase scarcely known in the English language. It is beyond the range of our ordinary ideas; a sort of physical incomprehensibility; but that it is a material existence, our own eyes bore witness.” Now for the facts.
On Sunday, eleventh July, it was whispered about in Sydney, that a Dr. Kerr had found a hundred weight of gold! Few believed it. It was thought a capital joke. Monday arrived, and all doubts were dispelled; for at mid-day a tandem, drawn by two grays, drew up in front of the Free Press Office. Two immense lumps of virgin gold were displayed in the body of the vehicle; and being freely handed round to a quickly assembled crowd, created feelings of wonder, incredulity, and admiration, which were increased, when a large tin box was pointed to as containing the remainder of the hundred weight of gold. The whole was at once lodged at the Union Bank of Australia, where the process of weighing took place in the presence of a party of gentlemen, including the lucky owner and the manager of the bank. The entire mass weighed about three hundred pounds, which yielded one hundred and six pounds of pure gold, valued at four thousand pounds. This magnificent mass was accidentally discovered by an educated aboriginal in the service of Dr. Kerr; who, while keeping his master’s sheep, had his attention attracted to something shining on a block of quartz, and breaking off a portion with his tomahawk, this hitherto hidden treasure stared him in the face. The lump was purchased by Messrs. Thacker and Company, of Sydney, and consigned to an eminent firm in London.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner reported a gold field many miles in extent, north-east of Bathurst, adding that it would afford employment for five thousand persons, the average gain of each person being then one pound per day; while provisions, which at one time had been enormously high, owing to the cupidity of speculators, had fallen so low, that the sum of ten shillings a week was quite sufficient for one individual’s subsistence. The reports from the other commissioners were equally favorable; and it is gratifying to find that they all spoke in the highest terms of the orderly and exemplary conduct of the diggers.
Since the discoveries in the neighborhood of Sydney, there have been found, in South Australia, large tracts of country abounding in gold, only sixteen miles from Melbourne. The most recent accounts (December 15, 1851) from these regions are of a most astounding character. In the first week in December nearly fifty thousand pounds value in gold was brought into Melbourne and Geelong. The amount would have been greater but for want of conveyance. “To find quartz,” says the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, “is to find gold. It is found thirty-two feet from the surface in plenty. Gold is actually oozing from the earth.” Nuggets of gold, from fourteen ounces to twenty-seven pounds, are to be found in abundance. A single quartz “nugget,” found in Louisa creek, sold for one thousand one hundred and fifty-five pounds. The Alert was on her way home with one hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling in gold, and two other vessels with similar rich cargoes.
Every town and village were becoming gradually deserted. “Those who remain behind to mind the flocks demand such wages, that farming will not long pay. Labor is in such demand that any body with a pair of hands can readily command thirty-five shillings per week, with board and lodging.” The Government Commissioners had given in their unanimous report, that the gold fields were already so extensive as to afford remunerative employment for one hundred thousand persons. In conclusion, the last advices describe the excitement as so intense that fears were entertained that sufficient hands would not be left to get in the standing crops.
Every week the number multiplies of gold-seekers’ colonies planted about streams in Australia; at all, the conduct of the diggers is exemplary. Most of them cease from labor on the Sunday, and spend that day as they would spend it if they were in town. The first keg of spirits taken into an Australian gold field had its head punched out by the miners; and Government has since assisted them in the endeavor to repress the use of stronger stimulants than wine or beer. Where every member of the community possesses more or less of the great object of desire; where stolen gold could never be identified; where it would be far from easy to identify a thief who passes to-and-fro among communities composed entirely of chance-comers, having faces strange one to another, a little drunkenness might lead to a great deal of lawlessness and crime. There are men, however, who will drink; and what are called by the miners “sly grog-sellers” exist, and elude discovery in every gold settlement. Yet we read of one man who, being drunk, had dropped the bottle which contained his gold, and are informed that he was afterward sought out, and received due restoration of his treasure from its finder. Some settlements are much more lawless than the rest, and we have read, perhaps, more ill of Ballarat than any other; yet it is of Ballarat that we receive the following sketch from a private correspondent.
The writer, with a party of four young friends, quitted a farm near Geelong, in October last year, to experiment as a digger at Ballarat until the harvest. One man at a gold field can do little for himself; a party of about four is requisite to make a profitable division of the labor. “With this party,” our correspondent says, “I started on Thursday, October the second, for the Gold City of Ballarat. We took with us all requisite tools; a large tarpaulin to make into a tent; provisions to last us for two months. All this was stowed away in our own dray; and our man Tom accompanied it.
“This mode of travelling—the universal mode in Australia—is very pleasant in fine weather. We used to be up at daybreak, and start as soon as we had breakfasted. We would go on leisurely—for bullocks won’t be hurried—and get through a stage of from fifteen to twenty miles, according to the state of the roads, allowing an interval of one hour for dinner. Then we would stop for the night at some convenient camping-ground, where there was a good supply of grass, wood, and water. There, our first proceedings were to make a big fire, and a great kettle of tea—a kettle, mind; then we rigged out a temporary tent, spread our beds on the ground, and went to sleep as comfortably as if we were at a first-rate hotel.
“On Monday night—having left the farm on the previous Thursday—we camped about two miles from the diggings; and making a very early start, we got in sight of them a little after sunrise.
“It certainly was the most extraordinary sight I ever beheld. Imagine a valley, varying in width from one hundred to five hundred yards, inclosed on either side by high ranges of hills, thickly timbered. Through the middle of this valley there winds a rapid little stream, or ‘creek,’ as it is termed here. On the banks of the creek, and among the trees of the surrounding ranges, were clustered tents, bark-huts formed after the native fashion with boughs of trees, and every kind of temporary habitation which could be put up in the course of an hour or two.
“Some idea may be formed of the number of tents and other habitations, when I say that there were then at least five thousand men at work within a space of about half-a-mile up the creek. All these had collected together in a few weeks; for it was only in the latter end of August that gold was first found in this out-of-the-way forest valley—now the site of the ‘City of Ballarat,’ as it was nicknamed by the diggers.
“We chose a place for our tent on a rather retired spot, not far from the creek; in a couple of hours our ‘house’ was put up, the stores stowed away inside it, and Tom and his team were off on the home journey to Geelong. Leaving the others to ‘set our house in order,’ get in a stock of firewood, bake a damper, and perform various other odd jobs attendant upon taking up one’s residence in the Bush—Fred and I set out to reconnoitre the scene of our future operations.
“The place where there was the richest deposit of gold was on the face of a hill, which sloped gradually down from the edges on the right-hand (or east) side of the creek, going towards the source. I mention these particulars, because it is worthy of note that almost all the principal diggings have been discovered in places similarly situated. The whole of the hill was what geologists call an ‘alluvial deposit:’ consisting of various strata of sand, gravel, large quartz boulders, and white clay, in the order I have named them. It is in this white clay, immediately beneath the quartz, that the gold is found. In one part of the hill, where the discovery was first made, this layer of quartz was visible at the surface, or ‘cropped out:’ in other parts it is to be met with at various depths, of from five to thirty feet.
“When first these diggings were discovered, there were, as might be expected, continual disputes as to how much ground each man should have for his operations. One party applied to the Government, which immediately appointed a Commissioner and a whole staff of subordinates, to maintain order and enforce certain regulations, made ostensibly for the benefit of the diggers. Of these regulations the two principal ones were, that each person must pay thirty shillings per month for a license to ‘dig, search for, and remove gold’ (I inclose you my license as a curiosity); and that no person could claim more than eight feet square of ground to work at, at one time. In consequence of this last regulation, the workings were concentrated in a small part of the hill, where the gold was chiefly to be found. This spot was perfectly riddled with holes, of from eight to sixteen feet square, separated by narrow pathways, which formed the means of communication between each hole and the creek. A walk about this honeycomb of holes was most amusing. The whole place swarmed with men; some at work in the pits; others carrying down the auriferous earth to be washed in the creek—in wheel-barrows, hand-barrows, sacks, and tin dishes on their heads. In some of the holes I even saw men digging out bits of gold from between the stones with a table-knife.
“Busy as this scene was, I think the scene at the creek was busier. Both banks, for half-a-mile, were lined with men, hard at work washing the earth in cradles. Each cradle employs three men; and all the cradles are placed close to one another, at intervals of not more than a yard. The noise produced by the incessant ‘rock-rock’ of these cradles was like that of an immense factory. This—together with continual hammering of a thousand picks, and the occasional crashing fall of immense trees, whose roots had been undermined by some mole of a gold-digger—made a confusion of sounds, of which you will find it difficult to form a just idea.”
Our correspondent’s party was not very fortunate in its researches at Ballarat. Having explained this to us, he continues to give his impressions of the place.
“When we arrived there, the influx of people was still going on; tents springing up at the rate of fifty per diem. This continued until the third week in September, when the number of persons on the ground was estimated at seven thousand. Strange as was the appearance of the place by day, it was still stranger at night. Before every tent was a fire; and in addition to this general illumination, there was not unfrequently a special one—the accidental burning down of some tent or other. These little conflagrations produced splendid effects; the bright glare suddenly lighting up the gloomy masses of trees, and the groups of wild-looking diggers.
“Noise, too, was a prominent feature of ‘Ballarat by night.’ From dusk till eleven P. M., there was a continuous discharge of fire-arms; for almost every one brought some kind of weapon with him to the diggings. Then there was a band which discoursed by no means eloquent music: nine-tenths of the score being monopolized by the drum. In the pauses of this—which occurred, I suppose, whenever the indefatigable drummer had made his arms ache—we would hear rising from some of the tents music of a more pleasing character. The party next ours sang hymns very correctly in four parts; and from another tent the ‘Last Rose of Summer’ sometimes issued, played very pathetically on the flageolet.
“Sunday was always well observed at the diggings, so far as absence from work was concerned: and there was Service held twice a day by different ministers. Altogether, though there were occasional fights—particularly on Sundays—there was much less disorder than one would have expected, where a large body of such men were gathered together. While we stayed, there happened only one murder and two or three robberies. You must not take the quantity of gold we got as any criterion of the amount found by other parties. Numbers made fortunes in a few weeks. One party that I knew obtained thirty pounds weight—troy—in seven weeks; and a youth of seventeen, who came out with me in the ‘Anna Maria,’ received five hundred pounds as his share of six weeks’ work. These are but ordinary cases. The greatest quantity known to have been taken out in one day, was sixty-three pounds weight, nearly three thousand pounds worth.
“On Wednesday, November fifth, we packed up, left Ballarat, and set off for Mount Alexander, where we arrived on the Saturday following. The Diggings there are not confined to one spot, but extend for twelve miles up a valley. The gold is found mostly among the surface soil; some I have even seen lying among the grass. We tried first at a place where there was only one party at work; and the trial proving satisfactory, we stayed there three weeks, and obtained thirty-six ounces of gold. For a few days we did nothing; and then we went over to some other Diggings about five miles off. Here we went “prospecting” for ourselves, and the first day found out a spot from which we took thirty-five ounces in one week—the last of our stay; eighteen ounces we found in a single day.
“We then started off, back to Geelong; for I was anxious to be back for the harvest. We reached home on Saturday, December twentieth.”
Writing on the twenty-eighth of December, our informant adds:—
“This gold discovery has sent the whole country mad. There are now upward of fifty thousand men at work at the various diggings; of which I have only mentioned the two principal ones, Ballarat and Mount Alexander. Every body who can by any means get away, is off. It is almost impossible to obtain laborers at any wages. Half the wheat in the country will most likely rot on the ground for want of hands to reap it. Fortunately we shall be able to get in ours ourselves, for our man Tom is still with us, and Mr. R’s four brothers will lend us a hand. We have a very good crop of wheat, for the first year; the barley, of which we had an acre or two, we have already cut and threshed, and are going to send a load in to Geelong to-morrow. I can handle the sickle and flail pretty well for a beginner. We shall cut the wheat next Tuesday. As soon as the harvest is over, and the wheat threshed out and sold, Mr. R. and I mean to make up another party and be off to the diggings. We cannot do all the work on the farm ourselves, and hiring servants now is out of the question. Men are asking seven shillings and sixpence a-day wages, and will only hire by the week at that rate. Things will soon be in the same state as they are in California. All ordinary employments will be put a stop to for a time; but there will no doubt come a reaction in the course of a year or two.”
The reaction anticipated by the writer will not consist in a disgust at gold, or a decrease in the number of gold-diggers. It will be less a reaction than a recovery of balance. Although the gold in Australia is, on the whole, peculiarly accessible, and so abundant that a persevering worker cannot fail to draw a livelihood out of the diggings; yet there are very many workers who are not disposed to persevere. Experience has shown, that a large number of men who rush upon the gold field to pick up a fortune, like all sanguine people, take up quickly with despair, and come away after a few weeks of bad success. Of the large number of people who will be induced by their gold to emigrate into the Australian colonies, many will try the gold fields and abandon them, many will find their health or their acquired habits unsuited to the rough work of the diggings, and the “Home of the Gold Miners”—as one sees it advertised in Sydney papers, “weighing only twelve pounds—nine feet square by eight feet high, for thirty-five shillings.” Such men and others will be more ready to spread about the towns and through the pastures. In a year or two there will be in Australia labor willing to employ itself as readily upon the fields as upon the gold, while the work will proceed at the gold fields steadily enough.
The contrast is very great between the orderly behavior at the gold fields in Australia, and of California. There are few fields, we are told, at which a miner might not have his wife and family; if he could provide accommodation for them, they would be as safe, and meet with just as much respect as if they lived in their own house in town. A clergyman, quitting the Turon settlement, publicly returns his “sincere thanks to the commissioners of the Turon, and to the mining population in general, for the many acts of kindness which he experienced during his short residence among them. He considers it his duty,” he says, “thus publicly to state, not only his own personal obligations, but also the pleasure which he felt in witnessing the general desire of all classes to promote the object of his mission, and to profit by his humble labors; and if,” he says, “he were to judge from their orderly conduct, and from the earnest attention and apparent devotion with which they all joined in the religious services of the Sabbath, he could not help forming a very favorable opinion of the miners. It cannot be denied that the great majority are sober, industrious, and well-disposed.”
The weekly “Gold Circular,” at Sydney gets poetical on the subject:—
“In our first shipment, we could count the value of the gold in pounds sterling by hundreds; in a few weeks it rose to thousands; in a few weeks more it became tens of thousands; and we are fast approaching a period when each ship will convey hundreds of thousands.” At the time when that was written—on December sixth—in the very few months since the digging was commenced, there had been shipped from Australia, gold to the value of three hundred and twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven pounds; and since that time the yield of gold has been increasing. At the same time, California continues unexhausted, and the field of gold in Russia has enlarged.
It will be seen, therefore, that there is just reason for anticipating a change in the value of gold, which will begin to take place gradually at no distant time. The annual supply of gold promises now to be about eight times greater than it was at the commencement of the present century. The value of silver, with reference to corn, fell two-thirds in the sixteenth century, as that of gold is likely to fall in the nineteenth. The price of silver fell in consequence of the increased production from the great mines in America. A piece of gold is now assumed to be worth fifteen or sixteen like pieces of silver; during the Middle Ages it was worth only twelve such pieces. In Europe, under Charlemagne, ten pieces of silver were an equivalent; and, at one period in Rome, silver was but nine times less precious than gold: relative values, therefore, have varied, and they will vary again. Since they were last fixed by law, there have occurred no causes of disturbance. Now, however, a time of disturbance is again at hand.
In France, the monetary unit is a franc; and silver is, by law, the standard coinage; but, a supplementary law having assigned the value of twenty silver francs to pieces of gold of a fixed weight, our neighbors will not be exempted from our difficulty, and the French State, like the English State, may profit, if it please, at the expense of public creditors. Governments have only to do nothing, and a large part of their debts will tumble from them; holders of Government securities have only to be passive, and in the course of years their income will diminish sensibly. Debtors will hold a jubilee, and creditors will be dismayed, if gold shall be allowed to fall in value, without due provision being made to avert, as far as possible, all inconvenience attending that event.
In 1848, the value of gold had been for many years a very little more than the amount of silver allowed by law, in France, as its equivalent. The little difference was quite enough to put gold out of circulation. Gold was more precious as metal than as money: it was, therefore, used by preference as metal; when wanted as coin, it was only to be bought—at more than its legal current value—of the money-changers. There is a vast quantity of gold in circulation now, but it is newly coined.
The fall in the value of gold cannot begin to any appreciable extent, until the utmost available quantity has been employed upon the monetary system of the world. Coinage now goes on rapidly. A huge mass of sovereigns has lately been sent from England to the Australian colonies. When the depreciation once begins, it will be tolerably rapid. It is not absurd to calculate that, if the gold production should continue at its present rate, sovereigns will be as half sovereigns now are in value, in the course of about twenty years.
At the same time, it will be the duty of all States to take such precautions as shall make it impossible for a change of this kind to introduce confusion into commerce, or to change the character and spirit of existing contracts.