Chap. X. A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT. 577 
order became its zealous defender. In short the whole 
process of development through which the social life of 
California has passed in a few years, is a striking and most 
instructive instance of the origin, organization, and improve- 
ment of human society from motives of advantage and 
necessity ; while the result bears a strong testimony in 
favour of the political and social forms and usages of the 
rth Americans, without which the Californian experi- 
ment could never have succeeded. Xo European nation 
would have had sufficient experience and skill in self- 
government to answer the wants of a situation such as that 
of Californian society in its nascent state. 
Should the reader have expected to be entertained, in- 
stead of these general remarks, by a narrative of personal 
adventures, or by sketches of the extravagances and oddities 
of Californian life, I regret that I am unable to gratify my 
own wish to oblige him. While I have no space left for par- 
ticulars of that kind, other writers have enlarged upon the 
subject and have printed it in true and lively colours. 
Besides, the classical epoch of Californian abnormities had 
passed before I arrived. During my visit, tacks and nails 
were no longer paid for with an equal weight of gold, — an 
opera-box was to be had for considerably less than one 
hundred and fifty pounds sterling per month, — a fiddler had 
little chance of earning ten pounds in an evening for play- 
ing in a gambling-house ; and John Kelly, the Irishman, 
dressed in a green velvet coat with diamond buttons, carry- 
the big drum suspended from a heavy golden chain, in a 
public procession, was no more to be seen. The period of 
the great conflagrations, by which the whole town had been 
twice consumed, was likewise over. The first " Vigilance 
Committee, 55 after it had ordered several executions, lived 
only, like a dismal shadow that had passed over the town, 
2 p 
