Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/107

Rh who are male laundresses (the proper masculine for this feminine noun I am quite ignorant of) and whom I never see.

I have been out here since the 15th May, having left London on the 27th April, but have seen very little of the country as yet, business confining me to this place. I am hoping to have some trips around shortly. Every village out here is termed a City: this Central with Blackhawk and Nevada, the three virtually forming one straggling town, numbers between four and five thousand people. Of these the great majority are miners, perhaps one thousand being Cornishmen, who earn from $3 to $4 a day wages, and much more when they take leases, or work by contract. The stores are well-stocked, but nearly everything is very dear. The working miner can get most of the mere necessaries of life almost as cheap as at home; the comforts and little luxuries are so priced that I find living here twice or three times as expensive. A small glass of English beer costs twenty-five cents, or say a shilling currency. To get your boots blacked (I always clean my own) you pay 25 cents, but then they get a "Dolly Varden shine," and are wrought upon by a "Boot Artist." A "tonsorialist" very naturally charges 75 cents or three shillings for cutting your hair; etc, etc, etc. We have churches, chapels, schools, and a new large hotel in which a very polite dancing party assembled the other evening. This week we are to have a concert, and also a lecture on the Darwinian Theory, admission one dollar. We have a theatre, in which we now and then have actors. The old rough days with their perils and excitement are quite over; the "City" is civilised enough to be dull and commonplace, while not yet civilised enough to be sociable and pleasant.