Imagine the highest state of excitement you ever saw in this city "on the eve of an important electtion," then multiply it by three, and you may realize some-thing of the California gold excitement1 now pervading nearly all classes of our "society." Since the publication of the documents accompanying the President's message, the flames have spread with tremendous intenseness, and to a very wide extent. Perhaps it is safe to say that at least one-third of the mechanics and young working-men are trying to go to California. Of course many will be unable to get the requisite means; for two or three hundreds dollars in ready cash is not as common as "common people" are themselves. Of this one-third however, a very large proportion will probably succeed, through dint of borrowing, begging, selling off, (many times at a sacrifice,) or even by more questionable means; for it has been discovered, in more than a few cases, that the California fever blinds some of its victims to the laws of strict honesty.
Gold! gold! how thou are worshipped by the human "critter"! What will not man undergo to clutch thee! And yet how truly have poets sung and philosophers said, since the world began, that thou art unable to make a man really happy! Still, a few drops of thee—say about a hundred and twenty five pounds, Troy weight, (as it is best to be specified,)—wouldn't come amiss to one who scribbles for his bread and butter. The pen may be mightier than the sword; but, candidly and without clap-trap, gold is a guid bit stronger than both pen and sword. Proof: the two latter a thousand times doubled, couldn't draw folks half so fast toward those distant shores of the Pacific, as the sight of a few shining little lumps that went off the other day to the Philadelphia Mint. But I dare say you see the same thing exemplified, in pretty nearly the same way, in New Orleans. Human nature is just the same ("with a difference") all over the world. It is the same, without the difference, in respect to greediness for the aforesaid gold.
Thus far, the session of Congress has produced no sensation. Some significant moves, it is true, have been made in the House of Representatives; but it rarely happens that the Congress which sits immediately before the advent of a new Administration takes very important steps. We here think not much of the doings at Washington. We exhausted all our available sympathies during the two months preceding the election, and look on politics for a while yet with apathy.
Still does the cholera2 linger at Staten Island, like some bore of a visiter—such as will come at times even into the editorial holy of holies. It lingers, and will not be gone, although sixty-five doctors have been down to see it. After this, no one knows what it will be able to stand, perhaps even the severest of frosts.
The destruction of the Park Theatre on Saturday night, still remains unaccounted for, as to the origin of the fire. Do you know there has long been a standing tradition that a deadly enemy of Hamblin3 has pursued him for years, moved thereto by a fiendish oath to incendiarize every theatre the said Hamblin shall control. The insurance offices ought to offer a reward for that chap, as he does them more harm than he does "the old man." My impression is clearly that Hamblin's insurance will cover his losses—though the papers state the contrary.
MANHATTAN.