388 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
nies of two or three, and they have numerous little shops in 
the streets of San Francisco, and in the smaller towns. They 
sprinkle their clothes previous to ironing, by filling the mouth 
with water and then blowing it over them. For ironing, in- 
stead of a flat-iron, they use an iron pan with a smooth bottom, 
and kept full of burning charcoal. There are not more than 
one thousand Chinese women in the state, and nine-tenths of 
them are prostitutes of the lowest class. ‘The Chinese children 
are few. 
The Chinese men, women, and children learn English very 
slowly ; most of those who have been five or six years in the 
state cannot understand the most common English words. All 
the Chinamen in California adhere to their national costume, 
with some slight variations. They wear their hair long, use 
no white muslin or linen next the skin, and never put on a 
dress coat or stove-pipe hat. In the cities, they ordinarily use 
wooden-soled shoes, with thin cotton uppers. Instead of a 
coat, they have a short blouse, generally of dark-blue cotton, 
fitting close up to the neck. The wealthy have this blouse 
made of silk or fur, In cold weather, if of silk or cotton, it is 
wadded. The legs and lower part of the body are enclosed in 
breeches of cotton or silk, tight from the thigh down, and loose 
above. Some of the poorer men find trousers of the European 
pattern more convenient, and wear them. The miners gener- 
ally wear coarse boots or shoes. 
§ 271. Indians—The Indians are a miserable race, destined 
to speedy extinction. Fifteen years ago they numbered fifty 
thousand or more; now there may be seven thousand of them. 
They were driven from their hunting-grounds and fishing- 
places by the whites, and they stole cattle for food; and to 
punish and prevent their stealing, the whites made war on 
them and slew them. Such has been the origin of most of the 
Indian wars which have raged in various parts of the state 
almost continuously during the iast twelve years. Scarcely a 
month has passed since 1849, without some hostile encounters 
between the red men and the whites in some parts of the state. 
