To be “dead-broke” was really, as far as a man’s immediate comfort was concerned, a matter of less importance in the mines than in almost any other place. There was no such thing as being out of employment, where every man employed himself, and could always be sure of ample remuneration for his day’s work. But notwithstanding the want of excuse for being “strapped,” it was very common to find men in that condition. There were everywhere numbers of lazy, idle men, who were always without a dollar; and others reduced themselves to that state by spending their time and money on claims which, after all, yielded them no return, or else gradually exhausted their funds in traveling about the country, and prospecting, never satisfied with fair average diggings, but always having the idea that better were to be found elsewhere. Few miners located themselves permanently in any place, and there was a large proportion of the population continually on the move. In almost every place I visited in the mines, I met men whom I had seen in other diggings. Some men I came across frequently, who seemed to do nothing but wander about the country, satisfied with asking the miners in the different diggings how they were “making out,” but without ever taking the trouble to prospect for themselves. Coin was very scarce, what there was being nearly all absorbed by the gamblers, who required it for convenience in carrying on their business. Ordinary payments were made in gold dust, every store being provided with a pair of gold scales, in which the miner weighed out sufficient dust from his buckskin purse to pay for his purchases. In general trading, gold dust was taken at sixteen dollars the ounce; but in the towns and villages, at the agencies of the various San Francisco bankers and express companies, it was bought at a higher price, according to the quality of the dust, and as it was more or less in demand for remittance to New York. The express business of the United States is one which has not been many years established, and which was originally limited to the transmission of small parcels of value. On the discovery of gold in California, the express houses of New York immediately established agencies in San Francisco, and at once became largely engaged in transmitting gold dust to the mint in Philadelphia, and to various parts of the United States, on account of the owners in California. As a natural result of doing such a business, they very soon began to sell their own drafts on New York, and to purchase and remit gold dust on their own account.