RECAPITULATION.
| Fires | $45,870,000 |
| Freshets | 1,500,000 |
| Shipping | 5,060,000 |
| State debt | 3,000,000 |
| City debt | 4,912,000 |
| $60,342,000 |
These figures show the amount of property that has been destroyed, or the amount of losses that have been sustained in California, by accidents, mishaps and mismanagement, within the last six years. I will, moreover, give a list of lives lost by violent measures during the same period:
| Murders | 4,200 |
| Suicides | 1,400 |
| Insanity, (produced by disappointment and misfortune) | 1,700 |
| Wrecked and perished on the way per sailing vessels and steamers | 2,200 |
| Killed by Indians and died of starvation per overland route | 1,600 |
| Perished in the mines and mountains of the State for want of medical attention and food, and by the hands of the Indians | 5,300 |
| Total | 16,400 |
It may be urged that the State ought not to be held accountable for any number of these sixteen thousand four hundred unfortunates, who, for the lack of law and order in a majority of the cases, lost their lives by violent means. We leave the question entirely with the reader. It may also be urged that the State ought not to be charged with any part of the extraordinary losses by fire and shipwreck, notwithstanding foreign capitalists were the principal sufferers in both cases. This question we also submit to the decision of the reader.
But I deem it unnecessary to dwell on this part of my subject. In presenting the foregoing calculations, it has been my aim to show that California is a country of unparalleled casualties and catastrophes, and to direct attention to the immense losses which have been sustained in opening its mines of wealth. A large number of people, it seems, have got into the habit of estimating the gains without taking into consideration the cost or losses at all; and there are those, no doubt, who will attempt to find fault with the account which I have drawn up between California and the United States. Though that account is in the main correct, I admit that slight errors may here and there exist; for, as I remarked at the outset, the debits and credits are so numerous, and of such an intricate nature, that it would be impossible to arrive at the exact amounts without the greatest research and elaboration. If I have succeeded in undeceiving those who have heretofore regarded California as an unincumbered God-send, my object has been attained. I have endeavored to show that, though there has been a great deal of gold obtained in the country, it is not all clear gain, and that notwithstanding there are large deposits of pure metal, there are also huge masses of dross. Shallow enthusiasts have asserted that the United States would have become bankrupt two or three years ago, had it not been for the discovery of gold in California. A more preposterous opinion was never entertained. Equally as much wisdom might be found in the assertion that Great Britain would have been sold by the sheriff, if gold had not been discovered in Australia. As a further proof of the beggarly condition of the country, it may not be amiss to remark that, during the last session of Congress, the general government appropriated upwards of four millions of dollars for the relief and benefit of California; and her senators and representatives are still clamoring for additional favors.
For the benefit of the reader, and in confirmation of statements made in this chapter relative to the past and present of California, I give the following extract from the Louisville Journal, to which my attention has been called since the foregoing calculations and statistics were prepared.
COST OF CALIFORNIA GOLD.
“For the information of those persons who believe that the United States thus far have been benefited by the discovery of gold in California, we propose to submit a few remarks and calculations.