CALIFORNIA. (From the Polynesian of October 6.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 377, 24 November 1849, Page 3

CALIFORNIA. (From the Polynesian of October 6.)

STRAWS FROM THE GOLD CO\ST — No. 7. San Francisco. Augu&t 20, 1849. Steuner arrived — Polk dead— State of the gold fever —The way to cater for the public— Loose Arithmetic—Growth of San Fianciseo— How California benefits the East — A backhanded compliment— New field for Ulent and ambition— Work for Faiier Mathew—New Churches starting— The " Great Diana" of the "Ephesians — New Government — Sweeps clean Mister Polynesian, — For a week all ears have been listening for the gun annunciatory of the steamer.— Business- men and bachelors were waxing anxious to hear from merchants and sweethearts at home. On Saturday, at 2 p. no., the gun went off, and score* of boats also went off to the steamec Panama as she diopped anchor in the harbour. The Panama left Panama on the 28th July, bringing 350 passengers, arronj them a new Po»t Master for San Francisco. I hope he will ac elerate somewhat the diltribution of the mail ; but as that operation bat never yet been performed here with sny marvellous rapidity, I take it for granted the mail for the I-landg will not be likely to reach you as loon as this which I fend by the Julian to-day. For the illumining of your ignorance, therefore, I hailed a hawker of fre«h paper-, in the street, and for half a dollar bought a weekly Herald of June 30 (lattst dtte) . which I send you herewith. Besides the death of ex-President Polk, passengers mention that of General Games, though I do not find it in the papers, on a cursory perusal. — The cholera was increasing rapidly in the North j the ••ycllew fever," that is, the gold fever, was intermitent — now r-iging, and now abating— on the whole, raging Gentlemen fresli from Connecticut tell me ideas prevalent at the East respecting California, are of the most extravagant kind : hundreds are sacrificing their little property, laying it under mortgage, &c to raise the meant of coming. The great talk it gold and California Every new arrival of correspondence sends up the feverish puhe. As a general thing, the printed letters from California are truthful; but there are some exception! ; and I notice that many letters are only garbled — where both sides of the ttory is told in the manuscript, only the * bright' is printed j where the largest amounts of gold dug and also the •malleit are named, only the " big figures" get into the papers ; and when the printers make " typogra phical errors" it i* odd that they never omit cyphers but always annex them— c g., in a pri.ate letter written to a friend, the sum of two thousand dollars was mentioned as having ben dug in a certain time. By hook or by crook, unluckily, the letter got into type, and went the rounds ; but the easy "annexation" of a couple of cynhers transformed the words two thousand into a grave #200,000— a pretty little sum truly, to be dug single-handed in a few weeks. No w mder 'live Yankees, who open their eyes at the sight of a sixpence, should open thorn inside out at such figures. No wonder golden dt earns haunt the pillows of hurd-working farmers among the New Englaud rocks, and incite active mechanics to try their hand at framing fortunes in the new land Ophir. The effect of the inru>hing multitudes on the appearance of San Francisco is most remarkable. I have been absent about six weeks— in that time the town seems to have doubled in buildings, in business, and in populatun. The California style of architecture, of which I have pr.vious'y given you "chips," is exhibited in »11 its plenitude — where, a few nu nths siaac, the houses were not numerous enough to shew the positions of the streets, there are compact blocks of edifices, among the number many buildings of taste and elegance. A wharf, to run 800 feet into the water, is in process of construction. Though warehouses are numerous and goods numberless all over the town, still from the number of hotels, grog-shops and gambling houses, ono would think eating, drinking, and gambling the chief business of the people. To help on the latter calling, some fifty blacklegs, I am told, arrived in the Panama ; if many more importations of the sort arrive, the Eait will deserve as high a compliment as new Hampshire received at the hands of a western man, who, falling in with a citizen of the granite state, asked him if New Hampshire was no remarkable for the sobriety and honesty of its people ? The granite man, flattered by the implied compliment o his native state, replied in the affirmative. " should think so," laid the western man chuckling ; " for I have seen so many loafers and scoundrels hailing from New Hampshire, that the state must have got pretty well emptied of them by this time, and the rest of the people, I thought, ought to be a pretty clever set." But if the men of this stamp have " left their country for their country's good," there are others, we are confident, who have left fin" the good of California. — Every iteamer brings men of education, character,

and high professional itanding ; young men of talent and ambition hate begun to look on this country witb a hopeful eye. There are offices to be filled here, ai well at fortunes made ; and it is to be a great and honorable work to lay well the foundation of a mighty •tate— a work worthy the enterprise and philauthropy of the most highly gifted. Let such men come — the more the better.— Some staunch temperance men hare arrived : would that \ Fathar Ma her might extend his trans -atlantic visit to this benighted border of the continent ; he would find a greater work 'o be done here than he undertook in the Emerald Isle. May the day dawn when some "Apiftle of Temperance" shall do for this land whit he hai accomplished in his own country. It would bo worth more to the people than the whole Sierra Nc«Ha. In the religious world the elements are working, and fast crystalising iuto shape and order. A Baptist churjh has been organised, and a house of worbhip of a temporary character built and dedicated. Preacher, RiT. O. C. Wheeler. A Presbyterian church has been collected, the first in the place in order ot time, and is under the ministration of Rev. A. Williams. A Congregational church has recently been organised, also under flattering auspices, and it under ihe charee of Rev. T. D. Hunt. The Episcopalians, with C. Y. Giilespie, J. D. Stevenson (col ), J. H. Merrill, as vestry, and are making efforts to establish that branch of the church in town. The Methodists are equally awake. The Catholics also have an officiating Padre. — But after all, the major part of the worshippers here are the worshippers of Mammon, or of self. —The idol temples take in the giddy crowd. The raws of long-necked bottles, on ■ lelf over shelf, and the grave images of saintly kiigs and queens and Jacks, striking y executed on cards for the use of the faithful, are most marvellous aids to devotion ; and the never-ceasing throngs of devotees at these places of daily auembling, are calculated to give strangers a fine impression of the fixed habits of the mulliude. Since August Ist and the new election, this town, for the first time since the advent of the golden age, has beea blessed with a good govprnment. The revolution — the Parisian order of politics, ?s over. The '* hounds" are forced to keep their kennels. The new Alcalde Col. Geary (our late Postmaster), who distinguished himself in Mexico, is a man to let " no dog bark," especially afler being unanimously elected by the whole people, in a time of cliques and parties and excitement. But enough for this time : your penultimate predecessor, C. E. Hitchcock, Esq., came in the s'e.»mer, in fine health. No ladies in this importation, with an exception or two. Yours in haste, Panorama..

The Pacific News.— This it the title of a new paper, to be publiihed tri- weekly at San Francisco, We are much pleased with the tone and spirit of Not, 1 and 3, and shall be glad to see additional numbers. For these we are indebted to Win. Ladd, E&q From an article entitled '' Gold Mines/ we clip the following ._<• Upon the Sacramento and its tributaries are at work about fifteen thousand men, and, with the 'year ending next January, they will doubtless relieve the earth of little less than #20,000,000, and thts we consider a moderate estimate. Upon the S«n Juaquin and it* tributaries there are some twenty thousand men now at work, who will earn by January next lome <8*20,000,000. Acoording to thin calculation this country will yield notle.s than #4'), ooo,ooo annually." — Eriend.

CoMMBNDABt.n Courtesy.— We are happy to record the fact that importantm portant assistance wag rendered to the American whal eship Tiger, Captain Brewster, by H. B. M.'s Ship, Blossom, during the pait »e»son, in the northern ocean. The Tiger being sbnt in by ice, the ciew of the Blossom cut through two miles of ice, lad came thirty miles to her assistance. Such acti are calcuhted to cherish a kindly feeling between the two nitons, and to cement the bond that a common language and a common origin should b« continually strengthen! rg.— Polynetian Oct. &h.