388 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



11) es of two or three, and they have numerous little shops in 

 the streets of San Francisco, and in the smaller towns. They 

 sprinkle their clothes previous to ironing, by filling the mouth 

 with water and then blowing it over them. For ironing, in- 

 stead of a flat-iron, they use an iron pan with a smooth bottom, 

 and kept full of burning charcoal. There are not more than 

 one thousand Chinese women in the state, and nine-tenths of 

 them are prostitutes of the lowest class. The Chinese children 

 are few. 



The Chinese men, women, and children learn English very 

 slowly ; most of those who have been five or six years in the 

 state cannot understand the most common English words. All 

 the Chinamen in California adhere to their national costume, 

 with some slight variations. They wear their hair long, use 

 no white muslin or linen next the skin, and never put on a 

 dress coat or stove-pipe hat. In the cities, they ordinarily use 

 wooden-soled shoes, with thin cotton uppers. Instead of a 

 coat, they have a short blouse, generally of dark-blue cotton, 

 fitting close up to the neck. The wealthy have this blouse 

 made of silk or fur. In cold weather, if of silk or cotton, it is 

 Avadded. The legs and lower part of the body are enclosed in 

 breeches of cotton or silk, tight from the thigh down, and loose 

 above. Some of the poorer men find trousers of the European 

 pattern more convenient, and wear them. The miners gener- 

 ally wear coarse boots or shoes. 



§ 271. Indians. — The Indians are a miserable race, destined 

 to speedy extinction. Fifteen years ago they numbered fifty 

 thousand or more ; now there may be seven thousand of them. 

 They were driven from their hunting-grounds and fishing- 

 places by the whites, and they stole cattle for food; and to 

 punish and prevent their stealing, the whites made war on 

 them and slew them. Such has been the origin of most of the 

 Indian wars which have raged in various parts of the state 

 almost continuously during the last twelve years. Scarcely a 

 month has passed since 1849, without some hostile encounters 

 between the red men and the whites in some parts of the state. 



