from the blushes of the gentleman so
liberally blessed. The rejoinder was an
impious comparison:

     Our Lord did in a manger lay
     And wore a crown of prickly thorn;
     Like him, I tarry here all day;
     Like him, I'm wretched and forlorn.

Wonder predominated until we began
to detect in the old man more of
cunning than of wretchedness. There was
method in his madness. His dress, which he
boasted of having never put off for upwards
of twenty years, was of old fustian, shining
with age and tilth. A strap, belonging to
some old donkey-gear, confined this vesture
round his waist; his sleeves were
fastened by thongs. He had on his feet a
huge pair of cracked and worn-out sailor's
boots.

We afterwards learnt that this holy
man was a perpetual object of surveillance
to the police; and that it was more by
luck than desert that he is now what he
calls himself in one of his songs—a bird of
liberty: jail-bird is what he ought to be. By
his own account, he was brought to his pre-
sent sad pass, by grief for the loss of a
dearly-beloved wife. But he is so vile an
impostor that he is even suspected of having
murdered his wife. He has more than once
been brought before the magistrates for
misdemeanours.

MR. WHITTLESTICK.

IN the San Francisco newspaper, entitled the
Wide West, Mr. Whittlestick amused the
people at the diggins with a sketch of
Californian character. The diggers liked to see
their every-day acquaintances in print, and
called for a corrected and revised edition of
Whittlestick's works. This has duly
appeared in twenty-four pages large octavo,
from the press of "Bonestell and Williston,
Court Block, Clay Street, one door below
the Post Office, San Francisco."

Herein the miner may read about himself.
If he be an unsuccessful miner, this is his
character: He knows California to be a humbug.
In his judgment the mines must soon give out.
He thinks that if he had arrived in 'forty-nine
he could have made his fortune. But
not in digging. No! Head-work is what
he was cut out for. There was a fine open-
ing in forty-nine 'for any man of talent and
energy to speculate in real estate. He don't
believe half the tales told about profitable
mining. People can't fool him with their
stories. California being a humbug, he
would go home if he hadn't to admit when
he got home that Jim and Tom knew just
how it would be—that they were right and
that he was wrong. He won't admit that. He
will starve first. He is pretty nigh starving.
He could go and work by the clay for the
Rattie Gulch Water and Mining Company,
but he likes independence; and, as he has his
mind to cultivate, objects to doing forced
labour for more than eight hours a day.
Prospecting is, in his opinion, the only way
to strike a lead. The big strokes are what
he is after. He don't want merely to make
a living—he could have done that at home.
His luck will turn some day. It is all luck.
Brooks went home with a fortune, and told
the unsuccessful miner's friends that the
unsuccessful miner hadn't half worked. It
isn't work that does it—it is luck. Brooks
would have worked for nothing if he hadn't
been so lucky; besides Brooks was avaricious.
The unsuccessful miner has slaved it in
California long enough: Australia is the
place for him; wishes that he had gone
there at once; want of capital is the only
thing that hinders him from going now. Too
many persons are allowed to come into the
diggins. In his opinion it is immigration
that has ruined the mines. He believes in
quartz mining. Thinks that the directors of a
quartz mining company make a snug thing of
it, and wouldn't mind starting such a
company himself, if he could find purchasers
for stock. Seldom writes home.

The glass is next presented to the face of
the successful miner:—In the opinion
of the successful miner, the idea that
the mines are worked out is all stuff. He
does not believe in luck; attributes his own
good fortune to innate force of character.
Believes that he would have got along any-
where, and that any man who really works
in the mines can do well. Never wearies of
writing home to his friends, especially to
those who always told him, &c. Thinks the
unsuccessful miner rather green in his
speculations, but sees clearly that his own losses in
quartz-mining and town-lots were entirely
unavoidable. Has an interest in one or two
stores in different parts of the mines, and is
very apt to mention those localities to the
new-comers who may ask his opinion, as the
likeliest places at which to begin. Considers
prospecting a very good thing; but as long
as he has a chain affording an average yield,
prefers that some one else should do it. Is
confident that he can wash a pan-ful of dirt
quicker, and get more gold out of it, than any
other man in the mines. Claims to be the
original inventor of the long-tom, and knew
that a sluice was first-rate for washing gold
long before it was introduced. Looks upon
sleeping in a tent as an enervating luxury.
Give him a blanket and a stone.

Another kind of digger is the digger-Indian.
He is clumsy; has black, matted hair; is
coarse-featured; wears anything or nothing—
that is to say, wears whatever clothes he gets
and all that he possesses. If he has been
fortunate, he may be met attired in several
shirts, coats and pantaloons, one over the
other. If he has not been fortunate,
he wears, perhaps, nothing but a single
pair of stockings. Of soap he has no