22 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



able, on the average, to those engaged in them, as are the 

 learned professions. Those who were rich in the older States, and 

 received a thorough education and a polished training, may here 

 be poor, while those who came hither poor and ignorant may 

 now be rich. Besides, the changes are so rapid that our neigh- 

 bor who is poor to-day may be rich to-morrow, and the neigh- 

 bor who is rich to-day may be poor to-morrow. Again, 

 California is preeminently a country of business. People 

 come here to make money, and everybody tries to make it ; 

 and in a State where wages are high, and profits large, a 

 man's business depends to a considerable extent on the multi- 

 tude of his friends, so everybody wishes to make a friend of 

 everybody else. The millionaire in Europe may treat his ten. 

 ant as an inferior ; in California the wealthiest land-owner is 

 expected to treat his tenant as an equal. All these things 

 have their influence in preventing the separation of our society 

 into those classes which prevail elsewhere. 



In no part of the world is the individual more free from 

 restraint. High wages, migratory habits, and bachelor life, 

 are not favorable to the maintenance of stiff social rules among 

 men ; and the tone of society among women must partake, to 

 a considerable extent, of that among men, especially in a 

 country where the women are in a small minority, and there- 

 fore are much courted. Public opinion, which as a guardian 

 of public morals is more powerful than the forms of law, loses 

 much of its power in a community where many of the inhab- 

 itants are not permanent residents. A large portion of the 

 men in California live alone, either in cabins or in hotels, 

 remote from women relatives, and therefore uninfluenced by 

 the powers of a " home." Many girls commence going into 

 " society " about fifteen, then receive company alone, and go 

 out alone with young men to dances and other places of 

 amusement. 



Charles Nordhoff pays Californians the following compli- 

 ment : 



