successful one; and then it follows, that unless the 'findings' of the latter at the close of the day are equal to the wages of twenty men, there is no increase of capital to the country, no gain upon the whole. Then the man who was lucky at one time, was unlucky at another--like a poacher who snares three hares in a night, but does not snare another for a week, while he has been unable to work during the day, and, in the end, his losses have counterbalanced his gains. Then if this phantom had proved a reality, all the mines and mills within a wide range of the place would have been instantly abandoned, and it must have taken a long time, indeed, to reproduce the capital thus lost to the country. In fine, it must have become necessary to fix a rent upon the diggings, in order to constitute a right to labour in them; and still further, to levy a tax to provide a police, if not a military force, to preserve order; and after these deductions are made, together with the incomes derived from previous occupations, and the great uncertainty connected with the vocation--to say nothing of the labour and discomforts to be endured--we cannot think gold-digging a profitable or desirable pursuit. COMPETITION AND MONOPOLY. A Memorandum just issued by that active body, the Sanitary Association, contains the following amusing and instructive account of the memorable competition between the great London water-companies forty years ago, and of the close monopoly in which that reckless and ruinous struggle ended:-- 'In 1810, a water mania, like our recent railway mania, suddenly broke out; and the principle of competition, to which the legislature had all along looked for the protection of the public, was put upon its trial. Two powerful companies, which had been several years occupied in obtaining their acts and setting up their machinery, now took the field--one, the West Middlesex, attacking the old monopolists on their western flank; the other, the East London, invading their territory from the opposite quarter. At the same time, a band of dashing Manchester speculators started the Grand Junction Company with a flaming prospectus, and boldly flung their pipes into the very thick of the tangled net-work which now spread in every direction beneath the pavement of the hotly-contested streets. 'These Grand-Junction men quite astonished the town by the magnificence of their promises. "Copious streams" of water, derived, by the medium of the Grand Junction Canal, from the rivers Colne and Brent: "always pure and fresh, because always coming in"--"high service, free of extra charge;" above all, "_unintermittent supply, so that customers may do without cisterns_;" such were a few of the seductive allurements held out by these interlopers to tempt deserters from the enemy's camp.