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from continuing to solicit in their publications the fair sex to come. "What does it matter about money," they said, "that is the last consideration of a gentleman among us." "The young person who loves the world and its pleasures," says one of them, “will find here partners ready to procure her every enjoyment; while she who is inclined to domestic comfort will meet quiet and steady men whose doors will open to welcome her."

Of the wrecked hopes of men in California many speak; of the wasted sympathy of woman, of her vain yearning for the promised tenderness, of her faith among the faithless, her constancy after all affection had been withdrawn from her, her deep sorrows and sufferings as the reward of a devoted life-none at all. What are the blows of battle to him who engages in the conflict in comparison to the helpless agony of an eye-witness? All things will a man give for his life. Woman gives all for love; deny her this and she is dead indeed. A catalogue of Californian infidelities, broken vows, brutal treatment, failure to provide on the part of him who took from a happy home a tender loving heart under promise of eternal love and protection, would make one blush for the race. Men came hither to rough it, and it did them no harm, but added to their manliness. For woman, a life in California in early times was probably one of the most trying positions she could be called upon to endure, her love, her pride, her health, and strength, her honor and religion, all being brought under the crucial test. If she could drudge by day, and withstand discomforts by night, and live under it, she could manage to get along; but with want and unkindness this could not always be. Too often her weary life was soulless duty, and death the only recompense; and thus was her gentle spirit crushed and made ripe for heaven.

Content is godliness; but for a woman to have content, she must have something beside wealth; her

heart knows no alchemy that will turn it into gold. There is a limit beyond which mere mental culture and unaspiring industry, be they never so earnest and patient, cannot broaden or deepen the soul. There must be a little sentiment, a little feminine ambition, a little womanly excitement other than that which a purely money-making husband usually gives; else the tender harmony of the heart is silenced, and the delicate flower withers and droops. California was no place for a fastidious woman. She who could wash best, iron best, or cook best, was the most independent, and the one to win fortune, and even happiness if her nature admitted it. Nevertheless, there were many whose hearts nothing but a golden key could unlock.

It is not to be wondered at that intemperance in business and pleasure should result in social discord. Though the Yankee element predominated, there was in society at the first, scarcely what could be called a recognized or recognizable nationality; California was then but a geographical expression-Vox et præterea nihil.

The guests of a large dinner or supper party were as varied in character and qualities of mind as among the rich men of Rome, who had acquired wealth by disreputable means in the days of Pliny, though the San Francisco host did not carry the distinction so far as to serve up different qualities of food and wine to the different guests as in Rome.

CHAPTER XIII.

FURTHER ABNORMITIES.

E come gli stornei ne portan l'ali
Nel freddo tempo a shiera larga e piena;
Cosí quel fiato gli spiriti mali

Di quá, di lá, di giú, di sú gli mena:
Nulla speranza gli conforta mai;

Non che di posa, ma di minor penor.

-Dell Inferno.

In Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, Charon compels all to strip before entering his boat; the rich man of his wealth, the vain man of his foppery, the king of his pride and kingship, the athlete of his flesh, the partrician of his noble birth and his honors, the philosopher of his disputatiousness, his rhetorical flourishes, his antitheses and parallelisms, and all his wordy trumpery. None may go to the regions of the dead even with a rag of clothes on.

Now there are many in California who would like to take with them there all they have, who are tremblingly fearful of dying and leaving the wealth they love so much; who cannot bear the thought of parting with it even after death; and so they leave it to be dissipated by lawyers and executors, instead of devoting it themselves to some useful and noble purpose. Many large estates have, in this way been scattered, which doubtless wrung the souls of their former owners as they looked up, watchful and wistful, at the hapless flow of their dear ducats. After all, there is a not wholly unjust law of compensation applicable to savage and civilized, poor and rich, the past and the present; even the most tormented in life may find relief in the

sweets of death. Let him beware who takes to himself more than his share of good, for upon him the gods will lay a corresponding quota of evil.

To a gold-laden ass all doors open. But the wealthwinners of California were not asses, whatever may prove to be some of their descendants, who like an oyster have much mouth but no head. Their lives, it is true, were too much like the life of an ass, enticed to drag its load by the fodder held before it, and which sees nothing but the fodder. They worked for money as if they had a wolf in their stomachs. Some were made wealthy by their avarice; others were made avaricious by their wealth. There were men among them of whom it might be said, as it was of Jeremy Taylor, "His very dust is gold"; there were others of whom we are compelled to admit, "His very gold is dust."

Wealth does not accumulate in the hands of a community by accident, nor by divine interposition, neither does literature, art, nor science. Because men will so and so is not a sufficient reason for their doings; all human actions are the result of cause, and individuals will to act, or they act, because of that cause. It was the application of the principles of political economy to social philosophy, though carried not quite so far as at the present time, that made the Wealth of Nations of Adam Smith so long the popular and powerful ex⚫ponent of economic principles.

Early in the sixties there arose a race of bonanza kings with silver souls; silver were their friends, and silver were their enemies, for to be worthy their consideration at all, they must be of silver; silver was their meat and meditations; their doors were barred with silver, and silver paved their way to the final abode of souls. There was a whiskey demon and a silver demon, and these two demons fought; the silver demon caught the whiskey demon, but the whiskey demon gnawed out the vitals of the silver demon. Great is whiskey, and great is silver, but the greatest

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of all is the bonanza king who gives his best friend points that direct him the shortest road to ruin.

Then spawned speculation, all kinds of gambling being in vogue in saintly circles and rabble congregations-all except the honest old-time games, such as faro, monte, and poker. And there were established among the sand-hills society shops, where the undying reign of fashion set in; and politician shops, where fat offices were sold; and peculation shops, where office-holders might turn an honest penny, and pay the purchase-money for their place.

There were some good fellows among the latter-day rich men, but not many. They were generally of the Gripus order; some hard drinkers among them, who when in their cups did not always treat with distinguished courtesy their guests; who were well enough satisfied to let Lucullus sup with Lucullus. Avarice gnawed at their vitals like the parasite in the stomach of a shark. Banks sprang up whose caterpillar was a steamboat or a grog-shop, and dignified dames sat in stately parlors whose grub was the laundry. These later overwhelmingly rich ones were quite different from the free-hearted and free-handed of the flush times, who, like Ali Baba, would not take the time. to count their gold, but measured it. The enormous wealth of the former seemed rather to create a hunger for more money, with a gnawing appetite ever increased by what it fed on. Then perhaps they would grow covetous of fame and higher social standing, and so flit about, hither and thither, restless, and perhaps reckless, in search of something which, when found, only added to their unappeased desires.

Along the pathway of nations, savage and civilized, we see every community with its moral ideal which acts as an individual cohesive force holding society together. It seems of less importance what the ideal is than that there should be one. Theft was the moral standard round which revolved all virtue in the mind