362 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
land, 13 born at sea, and others from Poland, Tahiti, Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, Cuba, Spain, West Indies, Russia, 
Holland, Hawaiian Islands, Norway, Italy, Tasmania, Belgium, 
Panama, Sweden, Switzerland, and Peru. The children from 
Treland, France, and Spanish America are few, because most 
of them are sent to the Catholic schools. Otherwise the table 
presents a pretty fair indication of the mixed character of the 
population, and the brief period of its residence in this state. 
The proportions are, however, not the same in all the counties. 
The proportion of people from the maritime states of New 
York and New England is larger in San Francisco than in any 
other county ; whereas Missouri is the leading state in Sonoma, 
Napa, Yolo and Santa Clara counties, which are agricultural. 
Texas has probably furnished more citizens to Tulare county 
than any other state of the Union; and Illinois and Jowa have 
furnished a considerable proportion of the residents of Siskiyou 
and Shasta counties. 
§ 254. Liberal Tone of Society As a body, the people of 
California are intelligent. It is very rare to find a white man 
who cannot read. They have travelled far to reach this coast, 
and the journey required from most of them a considerable ex- 
penditure of money and an enterprising spirit. Many of them 
had seen much of the world before coming to California, and 
have travelled considerably since their arrival. They are in- 
dustrious, energetic, brave, quick in speaking, ready to avenge 
an insult, accustomed to carry pistols and knives, quick to use 
them in quarrel, affable, unceremonious, and unreserved in their 
intercourse with acquaintances or strangers. These remarks 
will not apply to all individuals, but to the people generally, 
as compared with the people of other states and countries. 
The state has not yet had time to build up a national character 
among natives, but the people are different from all other 
people. They have much of the general traits of Americanism, 
but the traits are more striking because so many of the popu- 
lation are men, and men in the most vigorous period of man- 
hood, and bold, adventurous men, who have seen strange ups 
