364 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
In no part of the world is the individual more free from re- 
straint. Men, women, and children are permitted to do near- 
ly as they please. High wages, migratory habits, and bache- 
lor 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, especi- 
ally in a country where the women are in a small minority, 
and therefore 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 the inhab- 
itants are not permanent residents. A large portion of the 
men in California live alone, either in cabins or in hotels, re- 
mote from women relatives, and therefore uninfiuenced by the 
powers of a “home.” It isnot uncommon for married women 
to go to parties and balls in company with young bachelor 
friends. The girls commence going into “society” about fift 
teen, and then receive company alone, and go out alone with 
young men to dances and other places of amusement. In this 
there is a great error; too much liberty is allowed to the girls 
in the states on the Atlantic slope, and still greater liberty is 
given here, where, as they ripen earlier, they should be more 
guarded. 
The absence of restraint in society, the exciting character of 
business, the mildness of the climate, the interesting associa- 
tions of life, in a state where a man lives more and sees more 
in a year than he would see in a lustrum in older countries, 
have given the people who have resided here an attachment 
for California. It has been observed that a large proportion 
of those who have left the state, intending to spend the remain- 
der of.their lives in their native places, have returned, declar- 
ing that they could not accommodate themselves to the slow, 
quiet, dull ways of more antiquated states. 
§ 255. Publicity of Life.—Lite in California is very public. 
Many of the people live in hotels and at large boarding-houses. 
Travellers are numerous; theatres and balls are abundant and 
well attended; celebrations and festivals are frequent; the 
