scale without it.
The prevalence of mining, as a means of getting wealth, has contributed greatly to make the love of gambling an important part of the national character. Silver-mining in the old times was a most hazardous speculation, and people engaged in it used to make and lose great fortunes a dozen times in their lives. The miners worked not on fixed wages, but for a share of the produce, and so every man became a gambler on his own account. To a great extent the same evils prevail now, but two things have tended to lessen them. Poor ores are now worked profitably which used to be neglected by the miners; and, as these ores occur in almost inexhaustible masses, their mining is a much less speculative affair than the old system of mining for rich veins. Moreover, the men are, in some of the largest mines, paid by the day, so that their life has become more regular. In many places, however, the work is still done on shares by the miners, who pass their lives in alternations of excessive riches and all kinds of extravagance, succeeded by times of extreme poverty.