426 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



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

 may have been presented by some friend to his wife after mar- 

 riage. She may have a separate estate of one hundred thou- 

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

 twenty thousand dollars from it, and both may live in an ex- 

 travagant style, and yet creditors have no hold upon him 

 whatever. There is no imprisonment for debt, except in cases 

 of fraud, which it is almost impossible to prove. In many 

 ways the debtor is fenced about, so that the laws seem to have 

 been devised by men who had had experience in swindling 

 creditors, and wished to secure themselves against trouble in 

 the future. 



The laws of California, like the customs and trade, do not 

 favor the perpetuation of wealth in families. There is no 

 right of primogeniture. All children inherit equally. The 

 eldest son gets no more than the youngest. Public opin- 

 ion runs with the law. The rich man who expressed an 

 intention to give all his property to his eldest son, merely be- 

 cause of his seniority, would be hated. Entails are forbidden. 

 How different is all this from the state of affairs in Europe ! 

 There, at least in some countries, all the property goes to the 

 eldest son ; property is entailed in the family for many genera- 

 tions ; the debtor is subject to imprisonment ; there is no re- 

 lease for insolvents ; the property of the woman is by marriage 

 vested absolutely in the husband, and does not revert by in- 

 heritance to her blood relatives by her death ; the limitations 

 for commencing law-suits are very long, and sales, if not 

 made at the market price, or contracts, if made so that one 

 party appears to have obtained an advantage of the other, 

 may be rescinded. The habits and opinions of the people 

 give strength to their laws ; and wealth once in a family is 

 almost as certain to be transmitted through many generations 

 by inheritance in Europe, as its loss in the second or third gen- 

 eration is certain in the new States of America. 



