Fortunately, such a state of disorder is not likely to become chronic; when public authority, which ought to suppress it, is declared incompetent, society, alarmed for its own existence, steps in and at all hazard gets rid of turbulent characters. What is to be as much feared, especially in a community of such recent formation, is the attraction to a spirit of gambling, from fortunes thus suddenly acquired. Men, fascinated by such a magnet, abandon all productive and useful employment. Neither their ordinary vocations or their known duties will retain them in their ordinary habits; no rates of pay can follow the progressive chances of the miner with his pickaxe; the trade of gold-seeking supplants every other occupation; a whole people are bowed down to the earth, and absorbed in a work which brutalizes them, and they abandon to others all the cares of and attention to the cultivation of the soil. From the beginning of November last, the towns of Melbourne and Geelong were forsaken. Out of this numerous population the women alone remained stationary. The proximity of the “placers” at two or three days’ journey rendered the access easy. It was not necessary, as at Sydney, to equip for a long journey, or to lay in a stock of provisions and money. Men deserted, in crowds, flocks, farms, ships, workshops, counting-houses, and shops; no wages would induce them to remain. They flocked in from Sydney, Van Dieman’s Land, South Australia, and even from California. Vessels arriving could not discharge their cargoes for want of hands; goods perished on the quays, where they had been piled up. In many districts of the colony business and cultivation were suspended; hands were wanted everywhere. When shearers were to be met with, they asked the enormous price of 3s. 6d. for twenty fleeces. A month later, and Adelaide, the capital of Australia, realized the picture of the “Deserted Village.” Traders, artizans, proprietors, and capitalists, all were either ruined or had emigrated to Port Philip, to escape from inevitable ruin. The shares in the celebrated Burra Burra Copper Mine, which had been sold for above £200, found no buyers at £60, and their 700 workmen had disappeared; prices of all goods and wages rose in a frightful degree. We read, in a letter from Melbourne, of the 17th January, 1852:--“In the Banks and at the Post Offices, the clerks work double tides; other public services are at a stand for want of hands. There are no male servants to be found, even at exorbitant wages, and women will not remain, unless at considerable increase of pay. I requested first the waiter, and then the maid, at the hotel where I was stopping, to send a small parcel of linen to be washed. They told me that they could find no one who would wash. I was obliged to go to a shop and buy some new things. If you want a pair of boots, you must pay £2 10s. (63 francs). A pair of shoes cost 20s. (25 francs).”