FRENCHMEN IN THE MINES
The only miners on the Creek were Frenchmen, two or three of whom lived
in a very neat log cabin, close to the tunnel. Behind it was a small
kitchen-garden in a high state of cultivation, and alongside was a very
diminutive fac-simile of the cabin itself, which was tenanted by a
knowing-looking little terrier-dog.
The whole establishment had a finished and civilized air about it, and
was got up with a regard to appearances which was quite unusual.
But of all the men of different nations in the mines, the French were
most decidedly those who, judging from their domestic life, appeared to
be most at home. Not that they were a bit better than others able to
stand the hard work and exposure and privations, but about all their
huts and cabins, however roughly constructed they might be, there was
something in the minor details which bespoke more permanency than was
suggested by the generality of the rude abodes of the miners. It is very
certain that, without really expending more time or labor, or even
taking more trouble than other men about their domestic arrangements,
they did “fix things up” with such a degree of taste, and with so much
method about everything, as to give the idea that their life of toil
was mitigated by more than a usual share of ease and comfort.
A backwoodsman from the Western States is in some respects a good sort
of fellow to be with in the mountains, especially where there are
hostile Indians about, for he knows their ways, and can teach them
manners with his five-foot-barrel rifle when there is occasion for it;
he can also put up a log cabin in no time, and is of course up to all
the dodges of border life; but this is his normal condition, and he
cannot be expected to appreciate so much as others, or to be so apt at
introducing, all the little luxuries of a more civilized existence of
which he has no knowledge.
An old sailor is a useful man in the mines, when you can keep brandy out
of his reach; and, to do him justice, there is method in his manner of
drinking. He lives under the impression that all human existence should
be subdivided, as at sea, into watches; for when ashore he only
lengthens their duration, and takes his watch below as a regular matter
of duty, keeping below as long as the grog lasts; after which he comes
on deck again, quite refreshed, and remains as sober as a judge for two
or three weeks. His useful qualities, however, consist in the
extraordinary delight he takes in patching and mending, and tinkering up
whatever stands in need of such service. He is great at sweeping and
scrubbing, and keeping things clean generally, and, besides, knows
something of tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering; in fact, he can turn
his hand to anything, and generally does it artistically, while his
resources are endless, for he has a peculiar genius for making one thing
serve the purpose of another, and is never at a loss for a substitute.
But whatever the specialties and accomplishments of individuals or of
classes, the French, as a nation, were excelled by no other in the
practice of the art of making themselves personally comfortable. They
generally located themselves in considerable numbers, forming small
communities of their own, and always appeared to be jolly, and enjoying
themselves. They worked hard enough while they were at it, but in their
intervals of leisure they gave themselves up to what seemed at least to
be a more unqualified enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment than
other miners, who never entirely laid aside the earnest and careworn
look of the restless gold-hunter.
This enviable faculty, which the Frenchmen appeared to possess in such a
high degree, of bringing somewhat of the comforts of civilized life
along with them, was no doubt a great advantage; but whether it operated
favorably or otherwise towards their general success as miners, is not
so certain. One would naturally suppose that the more thoroughly a man
rested from mental or bodily labor, the more able would he be for
renewed exertions; but at the same time, a man whose mind is entirely
engrossed and preoccupied with one idea, is likely to attain his end
before the man who only devotes himself to the pursuit of that object at
stated intervals.
However that may be, there is no question that, as miners, the French
were far excelled by the Americans and by the English--for they are
inseparably mixed up together. There are thorough-going Americans who,
only a year or two ago, were her Majesty’s most faithful subjects, and
who still in their hearts cherish the recollection. The Frenchmen,
perhaps, possessed industry and energy enough, if they had had a more
practical genius to direct it; but in proportion to their numbers, they
did not bear a sufficiently conspicuous part, either in mining
operations, or in those branches of industry which have for their object
the converting of the natural advantages of a country to the service of
man. The direction of their energies was more towards the supplying of
those wants which presuppose the existence of a sufficiently wealthy and
luxurious class of consumers than towards seizing on such resources of
the country as offered them the means of enriching themselves in a
manner less immediately dependent on their neighbors.
Even as miners, they for the most part congregated round large camps,
and were never engaged in the same daring undertakings as the
Americans--such as lifting half a mile of a large river from its bed, or
trenching for miles the sides of steep mountains, and building lofty
viaducts supported on scaffolding which, from its height, looked like a
spider’s web; while the only pursuits they engaged in, except mining,
were the keeping of restaurants, estaminets, cafés chantants,
billiard-rooms, and such places, ministering more to the pleasures than
to the necessities of man; and not in any way adding to the wealth of
the country by rendering its resources more available.
Comparing the men of different nations, the pursuit they were engaged
in, and the ends they had accomplished, one could not help being
impressed with the idea that if the mines had been peopled entirely by
Frenchmen--if all the productive resources of the country had been in
their hands--it would yet have been many years before they would have
raised California to the rank and position of wealth and importance
which she now holds.
And it is quite fair to draw a general conclusion regarding them, based
upon such evidences of their capabilities as they afforded in
California; for not only did they form a very considerable proportion of
the population, but, as among people of other nations, there were also
among them men of all classes.
In many respects they were a most valuable addition to the population of
the country, especially in the cities, but as colonizers and subjugators
of a new country, their inefficiency was very apparent. They appeared to
want that daring and independent spirit of individual self-reliance
which impels an American or Englishman to disregard all counsel and
companionship, and to enter alone into the wildest enterprise, so long
as he himself thinks it feasible; or, disengaging himself for the time
being from all communication with his fellow-men, to plunge into the
wilderness, and there to labor steadily, uncheered by any passing
pleasure, and with nothing to sustain him in his determination but his
own confidence in his ability ultimately to attain his object.
One scarcely ever met a Frenchman traveling alone in search of diggings;
whereas the Americans and English whom one encountered were nearly
always solitary individuals, “on their own hook,” going to some distant
part where they had heard the diggings were good, but at the same time
ready to stop anywhere, or to change their destination according to
circumstances.
The Frenchmen were too gregarious; they were either found in large
numbers, or not at all. They did not travel about much, and, when they
did, were in parties of half-a-dozen. While Americans would travel
hundreds of miles to reach a place which they believed to be rich, the
great object of the Frenchmen, in their choice of a location, seemed to
be, to be near where a number of their countrymen were already settled.
But though they were so fond of each other’s company, they did not seem
to possess that cohesiveness and mutual confidence necessary for the
successful prosecution of a joint undertaking. Many kinds of diggings
could only be worked to advantage by companies of fifteen or twenty men,
but Frenchmen were never seen attempting such a combination.
Occasionally half-a-dozen or so worked together, but even then the
chances were that they squabbled among themselves, and broke up before
they had got their claim into working order, and so lost their labor
from their inability to keep united in one plan of operation.
In this respect the Americans had a very great advantage, for, though
strongly imbued with the spirit of individual independence, they are
certainly of all people in the world the most prompt to organize and
combine to carry out a common object. They are trained to it from their
youth in their innumerable, and to a foreigner unintelligible,
caucus-meetings, committees, conventions, and so forth, by means of
which they bring about the election of every officer in the State, from
the President down to the policeman; while the fact of every man
belonging to a fire company, a militia company, or something of that
sort, while it increases their idea of individual importance, and
impresses upon them the force of combined action, accustoms them also to
the duty of choosing their own leaders, and to the necessity of
afterwards recognizing them as such by implicit obedience.
Certain it is that, though the companies of American miners were
frequently composed of what seemed to be most incongruous
materials--rough, uneducated men, and men of refinement and
education--yet they worked together as harmoniously in carrying out
difficult mining and engineering operations, under the directions of
their “captain,” as if they had been a gang of day-laborers who had no
right to interfere as to the way in which the work should be conducted.
The captain was one of their number, chosen for his supposed ability to
carry out the work; but if they were not satisfied with his
performances, it was a very simple matter to call a meeting, at which
the business of deposing, or accepting the resignation of the
incompetent officer, and appointing a successor, was put through with
all the order and formality which accompanies the election of a
president of any public body. Those who would not submit to the decision
of the majority might sell out, but the prosecution of a work undertaken
was never abandoned or in any way retarded by the discordance of opinion
on the part of the different members of the company.
Individuals could not work alone to any advantage. All mining operations
were carried on by parties of men, varying in number according to the
nature of their diggings; and the strange assortment of dissimilar
characters occasionally to be found thus brought into close relationship
was but a type of the general state of society, which was such as
completely to realize the idea of perfect social equality.
There are occasions on which, among small communities, an overwhelming
emotion, common to all, may obliterate all feeling of relative
superiority; but the history of the world can show no such picture of
human nature upon the same scale as was to be seen in the mines, where,
among a population of hundreds of thousands of men, from all parts of
the world, and from every order of society, no individual or class was
accounted superior to another.
The cause of such a state of things was one which would tend to produce
the same results elsewhere. It consisted in this, that each man enjoyed
the capability of making as much money as his neighbor; for hard labor,
which any man could accomplish with legs and arms, without much
assistance from his head, was as remunerative as any other
occupation--consequently, all men indiscriminately were found so
employing themselves, and mining or any other kind of labor was
considered as dignified and as honorable a pursuit as any other.
In fact, so paramount was this idea, that in some men it created an
impression that not to labor was degrading--that those who did not live
by actual physical toil were men who did not come up to the scratch--who
rather shirked the common lot of all, “man’s original inheritance, that
he should sweat for his poor pittance.” I recollect once arriving in the
middle of the night in San Francisco, when it was not by any means the
place it now is, and finding all the hotels full, I was compelled to
take refuge in an establishment which offered no other accommodation to
the public than a lot of beds--half-a-dozen in a room. When I was paying
my dollar in the morning for having enjoyed the privilege of sleeping on
one of these concerns, an old miner was doing the same. He had no coin,
but weighed out an ounce of dust, and while getting his change he seemed
to be studying the keeper of the house, as a novel and interesting
specimen of human nature. The result showed itself in an expression of
supreme contempt on his worn and sunburnt features, as he addressed the
object of his contemplation: “Say now, stranger, do you do nothin’ else
but just sit thar and take a dollar from every man that sleeps on them
beds?”
“Yes, that’s my business,” replied the man.
“Well, then,” said the miner after a little further reflection, “it’s a
d--d mean way of making your living, that’s all I can say.”
This idea was natural enough to the man who so honestly expressed it,
but it was an exaggeration of that which prevailed in the mines, for no
occupation gave any man a superiority over his neighbors; there was no
social scale in which different classes held different positions, and
the only way in which a man could distinguish himself from others was by
what he actually had in him, by his own personal qualities, and by the
use he could make of them; and any man’s intrinsic merit it was not
difficult to discover; for it was not as in countries where the whole
population is divided into classes, and where individuals from widely
different stations are, when thrown together, prevented, by a degree of
restraint and hypocrisy on both sides, from exhibiting themselves
exactly as they would to their ordinary associates. Here no such
obstacle existed to the most unreserved intercourse; the habitual veil
of imposition and humbug, under which men usually disguise themselves
from the rest of the world, was thrown aside as a useless inconvenience.
They took no trouble to conceal what passed within them, but showed
themselves as they were, for better or for worse as the case might
be--sometimes, no doubt, very much for the worse; but in most instances
first impressions were not so favorable as those formed upon further
acquaintance.
Society--so to call it--certainly wanted that super-fine polish which
gives only a cold reflection of what is offered to it. There was no
pinchbeck or Brummagem ware; every man was a genuine solid article,
whether gold, silver, or copper: he was the same sterling metal all the
way through which he was on the surface; and the generous frankness and
hearty goodwill which, however roughly expressed, were the prevailing
characteristics of the miners, were the more grateful to the feelings,
as one knew that no secondary or personal motive sneaked beneath them.
It would be hard to say what particular class of men was the most
numerous in the mines, because few retained any distinguishing
characteristic to denote their former position.
The backwoodsman and the small farmer from the Western States, who
formed a very large proportion of the people, could be easily recognized
by many peculiarities. The educated man, who had lived and moved among
gentlemen, was also to be detected under any disguise; but the great
mass of the people were men who, in their appearance and manners,
afforded little clue to their antecedents.
From the mode of life and the style of dress, men became very much
assimilated in outward appearance, and acquired also a certain
individuality of manner, which was more characteristic of what they now
were--of the independent gold-hunter--than of any other order of
mankind.
It was easy enough, if one had any curiosity on the subject, to learn
something of a man’s history, for there was little reserve used in
alluding to it. What a man had been mattered as little to him as it did
to any one else; and it was refreshing to find, as was generally the
case, that one’s preconceived ideas of a man were so utterly at variance
with the truth.
Among such a motley crowd one could select his own associates, but the
best-informed, the most entertaining, and those in many respects the
most desirable, were not always those whose company one could have
enjoyed where the inseparable barriers of class are erected;--and it is
difficult to believe that any one, after circulating much among the
different types of mankind to be found in the mines, should not have a
higher respect than before for the various classes which they
represented.