3°6 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
be purchased by the investment of considerable sums of money. 
The wages of common laborers and mechanics are very high 
in California, and a large portion of the people are in hopes to 
attain wealth, and many of them make a practice of engaging 
in speculations, to do which they must borrow money. The 
high rate of wages, the unsettled habits of the people, the 
questionable character of land-titles generally, and the fluctu- 
ating nature of our commerce, all contribute to keep the rate 
of interest at a high figure. In San Francisco a peculiar 
custom prevails of loaning money from ‘steamer-day” to 
“steamer-day.” Steamer-day is the business-day which pre- 
cedes the sailing of the steamer for Panama, which steamer 
always carries away a shipment, of about a million dollars. As 
the steamer starts early in the morning, all the business in 
arranging the shipments must be done on the previous day, 
and then importers must send their money to the Eastern 
houses from which they obtain their supplies, and they must 
then dun their customers, the jobbers; and the jobbers must 
dun their customers, the retailers; and the retailers must dun 
every body. So steamer-day is a great day for the payment of 
inoney, and as every body expects to get his money on steamer- 
day, so he borrows promising to pay then. There are men 
who make it a business to lend money from steamer-day to 
steamer-day, a period of ten or fourteen days, the rate for that 
period being from one to two per cent., almost invariably with 
“ collateral security” of merchandise, which is on deposit in a 
warehouse, and is transferred by warehouse receipt to the 
money lender. Nearly every body borrows and lends money 
in California. It is no disgrace to lend money for high inter- 
est, nor is it ever considered bad management for a mer- 
chant to borrow and pay high rates; that is, if the amount be 
small or the term brief. But as a general rule, the merchants 
of California borrow altogether too much money. There are 
not Jess than fifty mercantile houses in San Francisco, that have 
paid more than ten thousand dollars each of interest on money 
borrowed during the last ten years, and of one house which 
