TILE COMING MANIA.
A swat is _reported to be threatening the commercial world, in- cluding the eontingent that, in the language of the Stock Ex- change is called "the Public "; and mining is said to be the new form of the moral cholera. It is almost as slow in its ap- proaches as that iuvisible pest ; but the fact is, that it not only aesxls At provoking cause, but also a prediaposition in the patient
community visited by the disease, and the predisposition only develops itself in cycles. One of these fits is coming on.
The provoking cause would seem to be Colonel Fremont, the hero of New Mexico, who was somewhat shabbily treated by the American Government, but has retained a substantial compensa- tion in the form of Californian lands rich in auriferous veins. Those lands have been brought into the markets of London and Paris, to be worked by " companies "; and the mining furor, once set in, will find ample fields in California and Australia. The bait is large and irresistible : when lumps of gold, from two to seven pounds in weight, fifty pounds, and even more than a hundred, reward the wanderer in Australian wilds, the adventurous and avaricious cannot keep back : and such baits are strewed over the Australian wilds, to say nothing of the scattered gold which yields to searching parties hundreds if not thousands in a few weeks. Australia may dread the moral consequences,—may view with horror the regurgitation of convicts, slavers, buccaniers, and ruf- fians in general, from California to the newer fields; but still the community at large sympathizes with the ruffians in general, and you hear of labourers, shopkeepers, artisans, domestic servants, the masters of the servants—all rushing to the gold-field. As the rush goes on, the commercial world will follow, with its ma- chinery; " companies " will be formed, stockjobbers and the tribe of paid officers will be busy in their vocation ; and "the Public" will rush to buy "shares."
It is an immediate and urgent question, whether the British Government will leave the custody of peace and order in Australia to Judge Lynch, or will supersede that functionary 'by a superior officer ? But whoever presides on the judicial bench of the golden region, the human rush to it will go on. Government had better be brisk ; but, brisk or slow, its movements will as little control the tide as the boatful of Police on the flood of Father Thames.
The rush, both to the gold and to the share-market, is a settled fact. When the public is told of the auriferous and melodiously- named.county of Mariposa, with its sixty-five miles in length of gold-bearing quartz ; when beneficent companies offer to dig into that splendid soil, and to bring back five millions a year net profit ; when shares are obtainable for " only " one pound sterling—a property in the gold-mountains of Mariposa, with a net annual revenue of five millions sterling or something like it, for" only" 11.—" the Public" will never keep back from the share-market. No; the companies with names of Spanish grandeur and melody will offer luxuries of invitation more tempting than " the West Diddlesex " or the " Stoke Pugis, Bullock Smithy, and Quantock Direct "; and the Public will rush as certainly as it did to Capel Court,—half-pay officers, widows, younger sons, elder sons, butlers, clergymen, footmen, peeresses, maid-servants, tradesmen, baronets, " swells" of all kinds, poets, peers, country gentlemen, and gents of all towns.
Since this is to be, it is not to be regretted that the crisis opens at a time when we have been well prepared for it by experience not yet so old as to be forgotten. It may be exasperated, indeed, by cer- fain extraneous circumstances : the heat of Presidential elections in France and America—the chances of movements on the Continent —the Reform Bill agitation, which Lord John, his friends, co- adjutors, and critics, are getting up at home—will provide an at- mosphere of fervour highly conducive to fever of all kinds : men will rush to public meetings to uphold " nationality " or "order"; will work themselves up, and each other, into a state of over- charged enthusiasm ; and with excited brains they will rush to the market to buy shares. Still, the Railway crisis is too recent for those who retain any self-possession to have forgotten it : each stage of the fever will be understood at its access, will be bet- ter explained to the patient, and better treated. We shall be pre- pared " venienti occurrere morbo." Many will be preserved al- together—will avoid the luscious Australiau fruits and Mariposau sweets, that would induce cholera and collapse. Those who would have been first dragged in will have more cool friends forewarned and forewarning, and will better understand, and therefore avoid, the premonitory symptoms. Some earnest of this better sense we note in the fact that the Australian reports have not yet materially affected freights or fares ; and although one Californian company has closed its share-list—although the fever is already foreseen in the City, and "the Public" begins to show the hectic flush—press, prudent people, and the burnt dogs of the late conflagration in Capel Court, will not fail to keep up the useful cry of warning. What will Government and Legislature do, if anything? That, we suppose, depends upon the Parliamentary agents ; but we do not know whether they own any extensive interest in shares.
Memorandum. It is one thing to speculate in mine, another to speculate in " shares ": it often happens that the profit falls to the first purchasers, the loss to the last. All men of keen wit and en- terprise know the distinction. Some, not of keen wit, bought the experience in 1846.
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