?50 KE SOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



§ 246. Inferiority of Colored Persons. — All white male 

 citizens are equal before the law of California ; but negroes, 

 Indians, and Chinamen are not permitted to vote or to testify 

 in the courts against white men. In a criminal case, one- 

 eighth negro blood and one-half of Indian blood, in civil cases 

 one-half of either, disqualifies a witness for testifying against a 

 white man. Slavery is forbidden by the constitution. 



§ 247. Laics Favorable to Debtors. — The laws of California 

 relating to the collection of debts are very favorable to the 

 debtor. His homestead, the property owned by his wife pre- 

 vious to marriage, that given to her afterward, his household 

 furniture to the value of two hundred dollars, his tools, if a 

 mechanic, his horse and wagon, if a mechanic, and his library, 

 if a lawyer, are exempt from execution. A married man, a 

 widow, or widower with children, or any head of a family, is 

 entitled to a homestead worth five thousand dollars, secure 

 against creditors. An unmarried person may have a home- 

 stead worth one thousand dollars. Such laws may prevent 

 much oppression of poor people, but they also protect and en- 

 courage much rascality. A man may own a homestead worth 

 five thousand dollars, and that may include a very elegant 

 dwelling. His household furniture, worth as much more, may 

 have been presented by some friend to his wife after marriage. 

 She may have a separate estate of one hundred thousand 

 dollars, and may derive an annual income of ten or twenty 

 thousand dollars from it, and both may live in an extravagant 

 style, and yet creditors have no hold upon him whatever. 

 There is no imprisonment for debt except in cases of fraud, and 

 that the laws are so drawn that it is almost impossible to prove. 

 One important class of testimony, admissible to prove a man a 

 thief or murderer, is not admissible if he be accused of fraud 

 in contracting a debt. In trials for obtaining money by false 

 pretenses— the most common kind of fraud in contracting 

 debts — the oral testimony of witnesses, as to the representa- 

 tions made by the accused, is not sufficient to convict ; there 

 must be some writing or token furnished by the defendant 



