For my own part, I do not believe that an uprising against bad government is possible in New York City, because there the supporters of bad government are a majority of the people. Their interest is the other way: in increased city taxes they evidently lose far more than, as a class, they gain by what is spent among them in corruption; but when they come to see this, they will not rebel against their corrupt leaders, but elect those whom they can trust. In San Francisco, the case was widely different: through the ballot frauds, a majority of the citizens were being infamously misgoverned by a contemptible minority, and the events of 1856 were only the necessary acts of the majority to regain their power, coupled with certain exceptional acts in the shape of arbitrary transportation of “Pikes” and Southern rowdies, justified by the exceptional circumstances of the young community. At Melbourne, under circumstances somewhat similar, our English colonists, instead of setting up a committee, built Pentridge Stockade with walls some thirty feet high, and created a military police, with almost arbitrary power. The difference is one of words. The whirl of life in a young gold country not only prevents the best men entering the political field, and so forces citizens to exercise their right of choice only between candidates of equal badness, but so engrosses the members of the community who exercise the ballot as to prevent the detection of fraud till it has ruled for years. Throughout young countries generally you find men say: “Yes! we‘re robbed, we know; but no one has time to go into that.” “I‘m for the old men,” said a Californian elector once, “for they‘ve plundered us so long that they‘re gorged, and can‘t swallow any more.” “No,” said another, “let‘s have fresh blood. Give every man a chance of robbing the State. Shape and share alike.” The wonder is, not that in such a State as California was till lately the machinery of government should work unevenly, but that it should work at all. Democracy has never endured so rough a test as that from which it has triumphantly emerged in the Golden State and City. The public spirit with which the merchants came forward and gave time and money to the cause of order is worthy of all praise, and the rapidity with which the organization of a new government was carried through is an instance of the singular power of our race for building up the machinery of self-government under conditions the most unpromising. Instead of the events of 1856 having been a case of opposition to law and order, they will stand in history as a remarkable proof of the law-abiding character of a people who vindicated justice by a demonstration of overwhelming force, laid down their arms, and returned in a few weeks to the peaceable routine of business life.