THE GOLD TRADE.

The trade in gold will now become of considerable importance, and as our readers may be interested, we maybe permitted to give a few remarks on the subject. The recent discoveries in California must render Gold cheaper,—there is no doubt about that, —but there is still an important question to be discussed; will this metal still continue scarce enough to be the main Standard of value, or will the recent discoveries disarrange the respective values of gold and silver ? We have no doubt that if the reports we hear are genuine, that gold must fall materially in value, but it must be a work of time to alter our present recognized curBut this is not the first discovery of a similar kind which has been made, as we find from an article in the North of Scotland Gazette, of the 23rd January, which we deem interesting,^—the writer states another case as follows:— " All that has taken place in Californa is but a repetition of what tuok place on the discovery of the Brazilian Pietolus, in the heart of the Minas Geraes, to which the town of Villa Rica owes its name and origin. In little more than a hundred years, according to the entries at the smelting-hpuse, that place alone sent into circulation more than 2,000,000 lbs. Troy weight of gold. When the discovery was first made, it is said, the gold-hunters had nothing more to do than to pull up the tufts of grass or small plants on the side of the hill, and shake the precious dust from- the roots. These, of course, yielded no second crop; but all along the road leading to the traveller sees cavities hewn in the rock, showing the construction jf the exposed veins and nests of. white quartz, from which thousands of cruzadoes have been extracted. While looking at,,this spot, and listening to the rapturous accounts which the people gave of the quantity of gold collected there, an intelligent English traveller (Mr. Luccock) says, he was led to " What has become of all this treasure ? Where are its fortunate proprietors ? Where the permanent marks of its success ? The only answar was, 'They are gone, and another remains. . The grandfather began the work, and seemed to flourish, fn the hand of the son it declined. The grandchildren are sunk into poverty. What have these people been doing ? They have washed into yonder river all that was most valuable of their ground, and left it a bare rock. The environs exhibited no signs of cultivation : not an acre of good pasture nor an enclosure was to be seen , " In India, where the mines are indigenous, it is generally estimated that Nadir Shah, in 1740, carried away not less than 400 or 500 millions sterling. In Jahanqueir's auto-biography, he relates that a golden platform around his throne weighed 40 tons. His throne and diadem were worth 4 millions. When he married the daughter of his minister, he presented her with as many lacks as amounted to 7 millions, and with a necklace of 40 beads, which cost him £2,000 per bead. The province of Berar, on one occas )n, furnished about 4 millions of gold He spent, besides, nearly 2 millions on the tomb of his father Akbar; one of the wonders of India. The silver-mine of Potosi js sugar-loaf, 9 miles round; 16,030 feet above the sea, and 2,700 above t c plain. The upper part has 500 adits for mines. Since 1845, it has yielded 400 millions sterling. The lower part is as rich as the upper, but flooded with springs, and, for want of steam-engines and capital, the late produce per annum has been reduced to the eighth of a million, .The silver mines of Portugalete, in Chicas, have ore six or eight times richer ; and there are others at Chorono, Chuquisaca, Porco Lipes, Cararigas, arid Oruro. For want of fuel and engines to smelt the, ore, the metals are separated by amalgamation with quicksilver, at a loss of 20 per cent. In 20 years, from 1820 to 1840, Mexico produced £6,436,453 in gold, and £13,818,032 in silver. In Chili £5,768,----488 in gold, and. £1,822,924, in silver. Buenos Ayres, £4,024,895 in, gold, and £27,182,673 in silver. Russia, £3,703,----743 in gold, £1,502,981 in silver. Total, 187£ millions, or 37 millions per annum. The produce of silver in South America, at the beginning of the present century, according to A. Yon Humboldt, "was 31259,153...marc5, about 2,03G,976 'lbs. Troy (l\ oz. to tho uiarcJoT the uoniiual i

valueof six millions 'sterling. Of this sum, Mexico yielded' 2,196", 140"mares; Peru, 573.958 marcs; Buncos Ayres, 463,098 marcs, and Chili 20,257 marcs. Gold is obtained by washing. The mines of the Altai mountains' are vary important; with a yearly produce of upwards of 1875 lbs. Troy of gold, 37,500 lbs. Troy of silver and a considerable quantity of copper, iron, and lead. Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia have gold mines which in 1830, produced 466,000 dollars worth of half and quarter eagles, the whole gold coinage being in that year 643.3,15 dollars worth. The silver 'Z\ millons, and copper -17,115 dollars. In New Grenada there are several silvermines; at Aroa, in Caraccas, a coppermine exists, which yields from 1,400 to 1,600 cwt, of meal yearly, aud at Santa Fe rock-salt aud pit-coal are found. The mines of Hungary, including those of Transylvania and of the Bannat ofTameswar, compose four great districts. ' The whole produce amounts to 3,250 lbs. Troy of gold, 53,125 lbs. Troy of silver, and from 36,000 to 40,000 of copper, C to 8,000 cwt. of lead> and about 6.0,000 cwt. of iron. Besides these, are, there in other primitive mountains, mines iri'the'Ural, Vosgjp, and B'a k Forrest, Hartx,-Sax-ony, Villefort, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Pyrenees, Alps, Ardennes, Nertshinskoi, Spain, Asia, and Africa,. Besides others in the Floetz mountains, and the washing of platinum, tin, precious st jnes, &c, in alluvium. The gold mines of Borisovak, in Siberia, by washing and finding of gold at Tagilisk, in masses to 13, and even 18 to 20 lbs are most productive. The masses are found but a few inches below the turf, and yield annually 12,000 lbs. Other alluvium, at Oilkui, have yielded sor 600 lbs. The same district yields abundance of platinum. In 1833, the gold produced was 161 poods, 38 Troy lbs., and the platina 99 poods.— Cornwall Chronicle.

The Mother of Charles Albert.—' At the graud and brilliant ball given by Prince Schwartzenberg, the Austrian J Ambassador at Paris, in the year 1810, in I celebration of the marriage of Napoleon { with Maria Louisa, at which the Emperor and many illustrious persons were | present, it is well known that a most destructive fire broke out in one of the temporary buildings erected for the occasion, by which the young and beautiful hostess and several other persons were burned to death, and many seriously injured. One of the visitors at this" ball was the then Dowager Duchess of SavoyCarignan, mother of Charles Albert, the ex King of Sardinia. This lady, prevented by the great confusion from getting out in time, found herself in one of the saloons burning on all sides. When in this most perilous situation, and almost suffocated, she was accidently discovered by her courier, who resolutely rushed through the flames into the room, took his mistress in his arms, and jumped from a window on the first floor to the ground. By this heroic conduct he broke both his tegs, but the duchess was unhurt. Her life having been thus miraculously saved through the courage of her courier, she of course paid him all possible attention during his illness, and when he had recovered from this accident she married him. He received afterwards from some Italian prince the title of Count Mont-! leart; and ever since they have been living together, but not very hajipily, in j various parts of the continent, and are j now in Paris. Varieties of the Genus Mendicant. —Besides counterfeiting the falling sickness, the"Domrnerat, or Dommerer, had a trick of doubling his iongue in his mouth and making " a horrid strange noise instead of speech." There was a fellow only two or three years ago who used to haunt the least-frequented side of Leicester-square; he was a regular Doramerer. He pretended to be dumb, and wcul 1 frighten ladies who passed alone by suddenly starting forth, displaying some pretended wound or ailment, and making a frightful sound, as if strug- j gling with a violent impediment to speech. In this way he compelled alms through fear. The Rogue was one who would speak in a lamentable tone, and crawl .along the streets, on crutches or sticks, as if there were not life enough in him strength into his legs ; " his head shall be bound with liven, as filthy in colour as the complexion, of his face ; his apparel is all tattered, his bosom naked, and most commonly no shirt on." The Glymmering-moris, who had always a tale of distress ready, were, for their parts, so tender-hearted, that they shed tears if they but mentioned tneir sorrows. These Glymmerers were the Riffodes of Paris, who, " accompagnes de leurs pretendues femmes et enfans, metidiaient dans les rues en tenant , a la main un certificat (forged of course) gui attestait que le feui dv ciel avait consume lour maison et tous leurs biens." The maritime habits of our island rendered the assumption of a sailor's costume, as it still is, a very favourite vehicle for deception. These pretended sailors (who perfectly resembled the Riflodes) were called Whip-jacks. Their talk was of noshing but fights at sea, piracies, drownings, and shipwrecks, and they travelled both l in (lie names and

shapes of mariners, with a counterfeit license to beg from town to town,— 'Dudley Costello,in C alburn's New Monthly Magazine. ; Interesting Si-aye Case.—At the ['recent Session of the Cecil County J '(Maryland) Court, EJiza J3ogle and her [.eight , children' petitioned for freedom, i Eliza had lived and acted as a free woman 21 years, without molestation by her former owners. The Cecil Whig gives an interesting outline of the case, from which weiearn that the Court decided, that as Eliza was admitted one time to have been a slave, and there was no record of her being freed by any process known to the law, she was a slave until the time of her death, notwithstanding she was allowed to live away from her master. Various other minor points were raised by the Counsel for the prisoner. The Jury retired about 8 o'clock 'on Thursday night, and remained out until 11. o'clock on Friday morning, when they sent down apetition to the Court praying to be released, as they could not possibly agree. About this time an arrangement was entered into by the Counsel to the parties to this effect—that Eliza and her youngest child should be declared free, and that the others should be sold in the state, to be free, at 35 years of age.— Xew York Paper. A Convict's Fortune.—A Jew in J Petticoat-lane, who had been a notorious fence for years in London, at last carried his pitcher to the well once too often ; in short, he was nabbed and lagged. From the first, he was quite aware that the scene of his future destiny would be laid in New South Wales, and he set about providing for the change in the most business-like way imaginable. He realized all he possessed, and had it placed to the account of his wife in one of the Sydney banks, and the day after he received his sentence, sent her forward to the colony to be ready for his arrival. Immediately upon his landing, his better half was ready with a petition to the Governor to have him assigned to her as a convict servant, and, as she had qualified herself as a householder, the assignment was made to her as a matter of course. Indeed, a wife—if she had a family of children to back her claim—and if she had not, she could easily borrow three or four brats for the occasion— rarely failed in having her husband assigned to her, and thus the transported felon not only became his own master, but found himself in a place where he could employ the fruits of his past nefarious course to more advantage than he could have done had he been allowed to continue his career at home. The large and rapid fortune which these gentry have made in Sydney would almost appear fabulous, even in the purlieus of Chapel Court, during an epidemic mania I for spectacle of en millionaire emancipist is by no means a rara avis, and from five to twenty thousand a year may be taken as the average income of the aristocracy of that worthy class. Indeed, they quite overtop the free and respectable inhabitants, and the exhibition is more glaring because they endeavour to revenge themselves for the noli me tongere of the untainted citizen, by the most ostentatious display of their wealth. You shall count hundreds of carriages-and-fours, barouches, landaus, &c, at the race-course at Five Dock Farm, and your cicerone in giving you an account of then , proprietors will only be giving you a catalogue of the most successful felonry of the colony. Still, in spite of their display, there is always the meanness of the parvenu amongst these gentry—for they will give anything to acquire a footing in the society of the free settlers, whom, at the same time, they appear so ambitious of outshining. I knew an instance of a wealthy emancipist, who had, for a long time, been endeavouring, in vain, to in duce a respectable draper to lend him countenance, by taking a seat in his barouche—despairing, at last, of being able again to scrape an acquaintance with him, he turned his attention to a person in the trade, but in more humble circumstances, over the ■■way. He finally succeeded in corrupting his virtue, and enrolling one free settler on the list of his acquaintances, by the lavish" expenditure of himself and of his friends. It has often struck me that these people, who are certainly not endowed with any excess of modesty, so rarely return to dazzle their old friends and enemies at home. I only know one instance of this kind, and if the reception he met in his native place was generally known, I do not think that it would deter others from following his example. Master P . was a very large wine-dealer, in Lincolnshire, ransacking all the fairs in the United Kingdom for hunters, carriages, horses, and hacks, and after making them and disposing of them to great advantage among the gentry within fifty miles of his stables. Hβ was a master-hand at his craft, and had notoriously accumulated considerable weath, but oiu luckles dty he happened to sell a horse at a high figure to a gentleman wlio returned it as unsound, and as our hero refused to return the money, a series of expensive law suits was the result, in which he was finally discomfited. Enraged at the issue of his swiftness., he turned every thing he possessed into aiid procured a docket of bankruptcy to be struck

against him. His opponent, however stuck to him like a bull-dog, and palpably proving in the bankruptcy court that he must have made away with his property to defraud his creditors, he was prosecuted for the offence, convicted of it, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years. An assignee master, however, a large emancipist otock and landholder was ready to apply for him as a convict servant on his arrival, and with.' a large sum—which he had saved ' out of the fire' by smashing at home, he purchased a share of his master's business. Now although they are very good judges of breeding horses in Australia, they knew nothing of training horses to their paces, and making them up for market, and SamP possessed these peculiar qualp fications to perfection. Before" three* years had expired he and his partner became the largest exporters of chargers to India, where they always commanded enormously high prices, and where the breed of MasterP and his partnor had already grown high inrepute, above aU'others. At the expiration of.eleven years, P- received a free j'ardon, and he returned home with a large fortune. Instead, however, of sneaking into hi& native place like a returned convict he entered it in an open carriage and fo;irp. to the tune of " See the Conquering-. Hero Comes," by a couple of braying bugles; and the same evening gave &". sumptuous feast to his old neighbours and friends, whose flattering reception of him, I presume, must be imputed to their attributing his return with health and wealth to the interposition of Providence in favour of his innocence ! When I last heard of him he was enjoying all. the pleasures and sports of a country gentleman's life, within a few miles of the stables which, before he left EuglanO, he did not disdain to clean out himself. — English Paper. Great complaints are made at Sunderland of the want of trade and employment. There is nothing to do for the" working men, and the prospect this year is worse than during the spring for manyyears past— Durham Advertiser. Education in Scotland.—From a parliamentary document, just printed, it appears that, in 1848-9, the sum of £16,434 3s. Bd. was granted for educational purposes in Scotland, of which £3,291 2s. 3d. was given to the established church, £12,-521 11s. sd. to theFree Church, and £328 10s. to other denominations.

Consumption op Leaf Gotd sr Bookbinders.—Some idea may beib'rmed of the extent of the London bookbinding trade in the nineteenth century,;when we state that the weekly consumption ofleaf gold; enriching the exterior of books, amounts to 3,600,000 square inches; and that the weight of paper-shavings .sold, annually by the London binders, cut off the edges of books, amounts to 350 tons. — Illustrated Historic Times. Axtiquari *.jr Discoveries inFrance. —The Paris papers announce several interesting archaeological discoveries.. The first was made by an ■ amateur of, Bar, in the Meuse, who detected some frescoes of the 16th century on the walls of the parochial church of Bourg, at St, Mihiel, besides some columns and which had been long concealed from-view by a thick white incrustation, which may. be.removed be chemical appliances without injuring the frescoes. The second discovery was made at Suevres,. near Blois. The " treasure" consists of an" enormous block of stone, which various marks show to have served at the human sacrifices of the Druids. This block—"to; what base purposes are some thingsturned!"—was about to be used in a workshop, but a tasteful antiquary induced the owner to give it up to the mayor of Blois, and it will be deposited in the museum of that city. The third discovery is still more interesting. It took place between Billom aud Mauzun (Auvergne), at about 100 metres from the high-road. A. child, who was employed in digging the ground on the side of an arid hill suddenly exclaimed to his father, " I see a horse." The father ran toUhe spot, and with the assistance of his son succeeded in extracting a group carved in a single block of the grey granite stone of the district, and representing a woman with a Medusa's head, whose body terminated hi a serpent's tail, trampled dowi by the hind hoofs of a rearing horse. The steed was surmounted by a knight in the act of striking the hideous monster with a javeliu. Beneath the group was found an oaken chest, containing an urn filled with ashes, aud by the side thereof four broken columns, someiron, somecharcoal, some medals, some , lamps, and somfr ancient tiles, &c.

Distances Jumped by. Houses.— Chandler, 39 feet over a brook at Warwick ; Culverthorpe, 37 feet, over hurdles. ; . at Newport; King of the Valley, 35' feet; over the Wisscndine brook,Lcicesteishire ■ •": Lottery, 34 feet, at Liverpool; Peter ! "Simple, 37 feet, at Boston. / "

The French Government- continues to * send to Louis Philippe. the - movpdble , . rlvate property left by tlip.'jrpypl Francs.. The Viesidßntp^lh^Repub^. c has personally interested.' himself iiiU2 promoting this acVof-jiitt'ee;*- , -' Qi Z'' r t**