1865.]

CALIFORNIA POLITICS AS A STUDY.

443

used freely. A friend of the leading aspirant was entrapped into offering five thousand dollars for the vote of a legislator, who was none too honest, but in the interest of the other side. It occurred in the private room of the member, who had previously secreted two witnesses in his wardrobe; and they heard the proposition. The legislature, disgusted at the corruption, went outside of all the candidates and elected Conness, who was lying ill at home. The finest State-house in the Union is building at Sacramento. It is of light sandstone; and agreeable in architecture and situation. A glance at the legislature, in session during one of my visits, was peculiarly entertaining. As in all western assemblies, most of the members were young. There was no prosing. The speaking was spirited and pointed. The faces indicated

that the standard of brains was a good

deal higher than in most parliamentary bodies.

GOVERNOR BROSS.

Society in the new States has strong distinctive features. It makes the forehead broader and the heart warmer.

years' experience, even the most stupid will show

'How much the dunce who has been sent to roam
Excels the dunce who has been kept at home.'

After a few

The intelligence of the plainest working men, day laborers, miners, teamsters, is peculiarly noticeable. It is partly due to the sudden ups and downs. I rode on the box with a stage-driver who was working for one hundred dollars per month. Two years before, he owned the entire stage-line, and was worth one hundred thousand dollars. Next year, he may own it again, and the present proprietor be cracking the whip. The man who first found gold in California is now poor. So is the discoverer of the great Comstock silver mine-the richest in the world.

The people are warm and demonstrative. One of them going back to the East is surprised at the general coldness and formality. He fancies that his old friends have never thawed out from the freezing their fathers got on Plymouth rock. California is the

444

FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA SOCIETY.

[1865. culmination of all that is best and pleasantest in frontier life. The people curiously combine shrewdness and enthusiasm. They go fast, have the best, and despise the expense. Parsimony is the Charybdis which they shun with so much terror that a good many go to pieces upon the Scylla of Extravagance. Wo to him who is niggardly, and to the new-comer who puts on airs!

According to Emerson, great cities take the nonsense out of us. So does frontier life. It teaches practical sagacity, rare judgment of men, quick detection of shams, ready weighing of a stranger's capacity, and generous trust in the trustworthy.

in the Union, and therefore in the world.

Already the State cherishes the names of her young heroesyoung because the dead can never grow old. Starr King, Broderick and Baker, repose in Lone Mountain cemetery, overlooking the Golden Gate, and the city of their adoption and their love.

In the matter of diet, our first San Francisco experience was amusing. We arrived at midnight; and before two o'clock the next afternoon, in addition to breakfast, we had been beguiled into participating in four 'little lunches.' By this time we began to realize that luncheon is the meal of the Pacific coast; that the proper time for it is at any hour of the day or night; and that whenever the stranger is invited to eat a bite' or take a little luncheon,' it means an elaborate meal, with choice fruits, and often with rare wines.

1865.].

AMERICAN WIT AND HUMOR.

445

The new country is prolific of new words and phrases. In conversation, San Francisco is shortened to 'Frisco.' At first it sounded droll enough; but we did in Frisco as the Friscans did, and soon adopted their nomenclature. A 'bilk' is an impostor, from the old Gothic verb 'to bilk.' The noun is common in England, but new, I think, in the United States. To 'slop over,' is to make some foolish mistake, run into wild eccentricity, be illbalanced. "That's the way I put it up,' signifies, 'the way I construct or build up my theory.' Sometimes the provincialisms degenerate into slang. 'I don't see it,' (incredulity.) 'You get!' (begone,) 'You bet!' (strong affirmation,) and the rest of that large family, all flourish.

There is a story of a burglar, who at midnight climbed up to a chamber-window, and cautiously opened it. The occupant, chancing to be awake, crept softly to the window, and just as the robber's face appeared, presented the smooth muzzles of two revolvers, with the injunction: 'You get!'

'You bet!' replied the house-breaker, dropping and running. There is no more pithy dialogue on record. Beyond question the Americans

are the wittiest and

And on the Pacific coast, more clever sayings and

most humorous people in the world. one hears, in every-day conversation, pungent retorts than anywhere else. Shall I record a few to con clude the chapter?

A gentleman who affected great plainness of habit and dress was elected to the United States Senate. One of his neighbors remarked:

'He will instantly have the cobbler put patches on all his new boots, to show that his new position has not made him proud.'

446

A STRING OF CALIFORNIA STORIES.

[1865. A candidate for another leading office had a very small head and enormous limbs. Said one of his political opponents:

'He is certain to be beaten. This State will never elect a man who wears a number-four hat and number-thirteen boots!'

A notorious exaggerator, after describing an impossible tree, said to his auditor:

'I don't wonder that you look incredulous. I would not have believed it myself, if I had not seen it.'

'Well,' replied the dry listener, 'I don't see it!'

An official surveyor was reputed greedy and avaricious, refusing to survey property, as his duties required, unless the owner would give him an interest in the real estate. Suddenly he was removed from office, when one of his friends declared that his head was taken off because he opposed Senator

'O no,' was the reply; that was not the reason.' 'Then why was he removed?'

'Because he wanted to be monarch of all he surveyed.'

A senatorial candidate was noted for his slovenly attire. A lady said of him: 'Mr. Blank is really the best man; and I should like to see him elected if the legislature would give him instructions.'

'What instructions?' asked her interlocutor.

'Instructions to put on a clean shirt once a week, and wash his face every morning!" An ex-governor and ex-senator was a passenger on the wrecked steamer Golden Rule. 'What did you save?' in quired a friend. He replied:

'I saved nothing but my character.'

'Then,' retorted the wag, 'you must have landed at San Francisco with less baggage than any other man who ever came to the Pacific coast!'

1865.]

THE RAW WINDS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

447

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE general climate of California is equable and balmy, with no snow save in mountain regions; and air so dry that even in Sacramento where the mercury sometimes rises to one hundred and twenty degrees, the heat is less prostrating than that of our eastern summers. The interior is very kind to bronchial and pulmonary complaints.

But San Francisco is a marked exception. The mean temperature of July varies only eight degrees from that of January. Ice is never produced, and thin clothing never worn. Many houses are hidden by luxuriant vines and shrubbery; and throughout the winter, delicate flowers grow in the open air, upon bleakest hills swept by ocean winds. Roses, fuchsias and heliotropes gladden the eye at Christmas and New Year.

Yet San Francisco is one of the very worst climates on the continent for sensitive throats and weak lungs. The incisive winds, commencing at noon and continuing far into night, seem to be the chief cause. I found a fire in my room essential to comfort, on the twentieth of August-often a more severe month than December. The winds are stronger in summer than in winter; but to infirm throats or lungs they are dangerous at all seasons. It is not simply that the air is salt; for many who are robust during ocean voyages cannot endure sea-winds blowing upon the land.

San Francisco harbor, is a
Through its narrow portals

The Golden Gate, the outlet of break in the Coast Range mountains. rushes a current of air like the blast of a furnace, passing up the valley of the Sacramento to supply the basins west of the Sierra Nevadas. It penetrates every fiber of the body, and cuts into weakened chests and throats like a sharp knife.