THE CONFUSION OF 1852, 1853, 1854 365 



loss of life, and concurrently the yield of gold had fallen by one- 

 fourth below that of 1853. Combined, these matters told very un- 

 favourably upon the bustling and hitherto prosperous metropolis, 

 and gave rise to a gloomy feeling of despondency and an unjustifiable 

 distrust of the future. 



For the first five or six months of 1852, the population on the 

 goldfields was mainly of colonial origin. From New South Wales, 

 South Australia and Tasmania the stream flowed in and spread out 

 over the land. Adelaide was threatened with desertion, for 15,000 

 persons were attracted from the sister colony, and the Burra Burra 

 copper mines were closed down for want of labour. One-third of 

 the adult male population of Melbourne threw family responsibili- 

 ties to the winds, and tramped to Forest Creek or Ballaarat. 

 Their places were temporarily filled by the daily arrivals of new 

 adventurers. Early in the year many of the shops were closed, 

 and there were scores of vacant houses in the suburbs left, as 

 sailors say, " all standing ". The traders who were able to con- 

 tinue business, though overworked, and worried by the defection 

 of their assistants and irregularity of supplies, were amply rewarded 

 by enormous profits. Many of them laid the foundations of sub- 

 stantial fortunes in that one year's work, and on the whole their 

 gains were far in excess of the average earnings of the gold digger. 

 As the winter drew on many luckless prospectors gravitated back 

 to their former avocations, with a sense of having unprofitably 

 endured much hardship, and having missed better chances. They 

 were soon absorbed, for the wages of labour had risen to unpre- 

 cedented figures. By July there were no longer any vacant shops 

 or houses, and the city hummed with business activity and wide- 

 spreading extensions. Any skilled artisan in connection with the 

 building trade could be sure of 30s. or even 2 per day, and the 

 simplest kind of manual labour commanded from 15s. to 1. In 

 June the first substantial contingents from Europe began to arrive ; 

 in July and August over 10,000 landed ; in September it sprang up 

 to over 15,000 ; and during the last three months of the year it 

 reached 44,000. These large figures were not net accessions to the 

 population, because during the year many thousands of diggers 

 from New South Wales and South Australia returned to their 



