THE STOCKTON STAGE--THE PLAINS--SAN FRANCISCO--ITS
PROGRESS--IMPROVEMENT IN STYLE OF LIVING--FEMALE
INFLUENCE--EXTRAVAGANCE--FIRST SETTLEMENT OF CALIFORNIA--EFFECTIVE
POPULATION--AMERICANS AS COLONISTS--ENGLISH IN CALIFORNIA--MODERN
DISCOVERIES OF GOLD--THEIR CONSEQUENCES.
After a month or two spent on the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, and in the
more sparsely populated section of country lying still farther south, I
returned to Sonora, on my way to San Francisco.
Here I took the stage for Stockton--a large open waggon, drawn by five
horses, three leaders abreast. We were well ballasted with about a dozen
passengers, the most amusing of whom was a hard dried-up man, dressed in
a greasy old leathern hunting-shirt, and inexpressibles to match, all
covered with tags and fringes, and clasping in his hand a long rifle,
which had probably been his bosom-friend all his life. He took an early
opportunity of informing us all that he was from Arkansas; that he came
to “Calaforny” across the plains, and having been successful in the
diggings, he was now on his way home. He was like a schoolboy going
home for the holidays, so delighted was he with the prospect before him.
It seemed to surprise him very much that all the rest of the party were
not also bound for Arkansas, and he evidently looked upon us, in
consequence, with a degree of compassionate interest, as much less
fortunate mortals, and very much to be pitied.
We started at four o’clock in the morning, so as to accomplish the sixty
or seventy miles to Stockton before the departure of the San Francisco
steamer. The first ten or twelve miles of our journey were consequently
performed in the dark, but that did not affect our speed; the road was
good, and it was only in crossing the hollows between the hills that the
navigation was difficult; for in such places the diggings had frequently
encroached so much on the road as to leave only sufficient space for a
waggon to pass between the miners’ excavations.
We drove about thirty miles before we were quite out of the mining
regions. The country, however, became gradually less mountainous, and
more suitable for cultivation, and every half-mile or so we passed a
house by the roadside, with ploughed fields around it, and whose
occupant combined farming with tavern-keeping. This was all very
pleasant travelling, but the most wretched part of the journey was when
we reached the plains. The earth was scorched and baked, the heat was
more oppressive than in the mountains, and for about thirty miles we
moved along enveloped in a cloud of dust, which soaked into one’s
clothes and hair and skin as if it had been a liquid substance. On our
arrival in Stockton we were of a uniform colour all over--all identity
of person was lost as much as in a party of chimney-sweeps; but
fortunately the steamer did not start for an hour, so I had time to take
a bath, and make myself look somewhat like a white man before going on
board.
The Stockton steamboats, though not so large as those which run to
Sacramento, were not inferior in speed. We steamed down the San Joaquin
at about twenty miles an hour, and reached San Francisco at ten o’clock
at night.
San Francisco retained now but little resemblance to what it had been in
its earlier days. The same extraordinary contrasts and incongruities
were not to be seen either in the people or in the appearance of the
streets. Men had settled down into their proper places; the various
branches of business and trade had worked for themselves their own
distinct channels; and the general style of the place was very much the
same as that of any flourishing commercial city.
It had increased immensely in extent, and its growth had been in all
directions. The barren sandhills which surrounded the city had been
graded down to an even slope, and were covered with streets of
well-built houses, and skirted by populous suburbs. Four or five wide
streets, more than a mile in length, built up with solid and uniform
brick warehouses, stretched all along in front of the city, upon ground
which had been reclaimed from the bay; and between these and the upper
part of the city was the region of fashionable shops and hotels, banks
and other public offices.
The large fleet of ships which for a long time, while seamen’s wages
were exorbitantly high, lay idly in the harbour, was now dispersed, and
all the shipping actually engaged in discharging cargo found
accommodation alongside of the numerous piers which had been built out
for nearly a mile into the bay. All manner of trades and manufactures
were flourishing as in a place a hundred years old. Omnibuses plied upon
the principal thoroughfares, and numbers of small steamboats ran to the
watering-places which had sprung up on the opposite shore.
The style of life had improved with the growth of the city, and with the
increased facilities of procuring servants and house-room. The ordinary
conventionalities of life were observed, and public opinion exercised
its wonted control over men’s conduct; for the female part of creation
was so numerously represented, that births and marriages occupied a
space in the daily papers larger than they require in many more populous
places.
Female influence was particularly observable in the great attention men
paid to their outward appearance. There was but little of the
independent taste and individuality in dress of other days; all had
succumbed to the sway of the goddess of fashion, and the usual style of
gentleman’s dress was even more elaborate than in New York. All classes
had changed, to a certain extent, in this respect. The miner, as he is
seen in the mines, was not to be met with in San Francisco; he attired
himself in suitable raiment in Sacramento or Stockton before venturing
to show himself in the metropolis.
Gambling was decidedly on the wane. Two or three saloons were still
extant, but the company to be found in them was not what it used to be.
The scum of the population was there; but respectable men, with a
character to lose, were chary of risking it by being seen in a public
gambling-room; and, moreover, the greater domestic comfort which men
enjoyed, and the usual attractions of social life, removed all excuse
for frequenting such places.
Public amusements were of a high order. Biscaccianti and Catherine Hayes
were giving concerts, Madame Anne Bishop was singing in English opera,
and the performances at the various theatres were sustained by the most
favourite actors from the Atlantic States.
Extravagant expenditure is a marked feature in San Francisco life. The
same style of ostentation, however, which is practised in older
countries, is unattainable in California, and in such a country would
entirely fail in its effect. Extravagance, accordingly, was indulged
more for the purpose of procuring tangible enjoyment than for the sake
of show. Men spent their money in surrounding themselves with the best
of everything, not so much for display as from due appreciation of its
excellence; for there is no city of the same size or age where there is
so little provincialism; the inhabitants, generally, are eminently
cosmopolitan in their character, and judge of merit by the highest
standard.
As yet, the influence of California upon this country is not so much
felt by direct communication as through the medium of the States. A very
large proportion of the English goods consumed in the country find their
way there through the New York market, and in many cases in such a
shape, as in articles manufactured in the States from English materials,
that the actual value of the trade cannot be accurately estimated. The
tide of emigration from this country to California follows very much the
same course. The English are there very numerous, but those direct from
England bear but an exceedingly small proportion to those from the
United States, from New South Wales, and other countries; and the
latter, no doubt, possessed a great advantage, for, without undervaluing
the merit of English mechanics and workmen in their own particular
trade, it must be allowed that the same class of Americans are less
confined to one speciality, and have more general knowledge of other
trades, which makes them better men to be turned adrift in a new
country, where they may have to employ themselves in a hundred different
ways before they find an opportunity of following the trade to which
they have been brought up. An English mechanic, after a few years’
experience of a younger country, without losing any of the superiority
he may possess in his own trade, becomes more fitted to compete with the
rest of the world when placed in a position where that speciality is
unavailable.
California has afforded the Americans their first opportunity of showing
their capacity as colonists. The other States which have, of late years,
been added to the Union, are not a fair criterion, for they have been
created merely by the expansion of the outer circumference of
civilisation, by the restlessness of the backwoodsman unaided by any
other class; but the attractions offered by California were such as to
draw to it a complete ready-made population of active and capable men,
of every trade and profession.
The majority of men went there with the idea of digging gold, or without
any definite idea of how they would employ themselves; but as the wants
of a large community began to be felt, the men were already at hand
capable of supplying them; and the result was, that in many professions,
and in all the various branches of mechanical industry, the same degree
of excellence was exhibited as is known in any part of the world.
Certainly no new country ever so rapidly advanced to the same high
position as California; but it is equally true that no country ever
commenced its career with such an effective population, or with the same
elements of wealth to work upon. There are circumstances, however,
connected with the early history of the country which may not appear to
be so favourable to immediate prosperity and progress. Other new
countries have been peopled by gradual accessions to an already formed
centre, from which the rest of the mass received character and
consistency; but in the case of California the process was much more
abrupt. Thousands of men, hitherto unknown to each other, and without
mutual relationship, were thrown suddenly together, unrestrained by
conventional or domestic obligations, and all more intently bent than
men usually are upon the one immediate object of acquiring wealth. It is
to be wondered that chaos and anarchy were not at first the result of
such a state of things; but such was never the case in any part of the
country; and it is, no doubt, greatly owing to the large proportion of
superior men among the early settlers, and to the capacity for
self-government possessed by all classes of Americans, that a system of
government was at once organised and maintained, and that the country
was so soon entitled to rank as one of the most important States of the
Union.
The consequences to the rest of the world of the gold of California it
is not easy to determine, and it is not for me to enter upon the great
question as to the effect on prices of an addition to the quantity of
precious metals in the world of £250,000,000, which in round numbers is
the estimated amount of gold and silver produced within the last eight
years. It seems, however, more than probable that the present high range
of prices may, to a certain extent, be caused by this immense addition
to our stock of gold and silver. But the question becomes more
complicated when we consider the extraordinary impetus given to commerce
and manufactures by this sudden production of gold acting simultaneously
with the equally expanding influence of Free Trade. The time cannot be
far off when this important investigation must be entered upon with all
that talent which can be brought to bear upon it. But this is the domain
of philosophers, and of those whose part in life it is to do the
deep-thinking for the rest of the world. I have no desire to trespass on
such ground, and abstain also from fruitlessly wandering in the endless
mazes of the Currency question.
There are other thoughts, however, which cannot but arise on considering
the modern discoveries of gold. When we see a new country and a new home
provided for our surplus population, at a time when it was most
required--when a fresh supply of gold, now a necessary to civilisation,
is discovered, as we were evidently and notoriously becoming so urgently
in want of it, we cannot but recognise the ruling hand of Providence.
And when we see the uttermost parts of the earth suddenly attracting
such an immense population of enterprising, intelligent, earnest
Anglo-Saxon men, forming, with a rapidity which seems miraculous, new
communities and new powers such as California and Australia, we must
indeed look upon this whole Golden Legend as one of the most wondrous
episodes in the history of mankind.
THE END.
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year’s earnings is brought out distinctly. Price 2s. 6d.
_The Account-Books are sold separately, and the price of the complete
Set, in Eight Volumes, is 24s. 6d._
ALSO,
A LABOUR ACCOUNT OF THE ESTATE.
This form of Labour Account is specially constructed for the use of
Country Gentlemen, whether residing at home or abroad, who require
returns to be made to them of the species of work which daily engages
the time of their labourers in whatever capacity, and whether male or
female; that is, besides Labourers and Field-Workers, the form is as
well adapted to Gardeners, Foresters, Hedgers, Roadmakers, Quarriers,
Miners, Gamekeepers, and Dairymaids. Price 2s. 6d.
* * * * *
“We have no hesitation in saying, that of the many systems of
keeping farm-accounts which are in vogue, there is not one which
will bear comparison with that just issued by Messrs Blackwood,
according to the recommendations of Mr Stephens in his invaluable
‘Book of the Farm.’ The great characteristic of this system is its
simplicity. When once the details are mastered, which it will take
very little trouble to accomplish, it will be prized as the
clearest method to show the profit and loss of business, and to
prove how the soundest and surest calculations can be arrived at.
We earnestly recommend a trial of the entire series of Books--they
must be used as a whole to be thoroughly profitable--for we are
convinced the verdict of our agricultural friends who make such a
trial will speedily accord with our own--that they owe a deep debt
of gratitude both to Mr Stephens and Messrs Blackwood for providing
a method so complete and satisfactory to their hands.”--_Bell’s
Messenger._
“From experience we can strongly recommend this system to all
actual and commencing agriculturists, combining, as it does, all
the elements of utility with simplicity.”--_The Field._
“Mr Stephens is so thoroughly conversant with all that is essential
to be set down in the Farmer’s Account-Book, that it is something
to find him induced to prepare a set of books for the
agriculturist. These we find reduced by him to what must be
regarded as the simplest and most essential element of a sound
double entry system.... The ease and obvious accuracy of these
books abundantly recommend them.”--_Notts Guardian._
WORKS OF PROFESSOR WILSON.
EDITED BY HIS SON-IN-LAW,
Professor Ferrier.
Publishing Quarterly, in Crown Octavo, price 6s. each Volume.
The Volumes published contain--
NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ.
Complete in Four Volumes, with GLOSSARY and INDEX, price 24s.
ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE.
CONTRIBUTED TO BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
Vols. 5, 6, and 7.
Future Volumes will contain--
RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
POEMS.
TALES.
LECTURES ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
In Octavo, price 14s., with Illustrations by the Author.
THREE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA.
By J. D. Borthwick.
WORKS OF SAMUEL WARREN, D.C.L.
A Cheap Edition, in 5 Vols., price 24s. bound in cloth, viz.:--
VOL. I. DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN, 5s. 6d.
VOLS. II. & III. TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR, 2 vols., 9s.
VOL. IV. NOW AND THEN, &c., 4s. 6d.
VOL. V. MISCELLANIES, 5s.
WORKS OF THE REV. THOMAS M‘CRIE, D.D.,
EDITED BY HIS SON,
Professor M‘Crie.
A New Edition, in Four Volumes, crown 8vo, price 6s. each.
VOL. I. LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.
II. LIFE OF ANDREW MELVILLE.
III. HISTORY OF THE REFORMATIONS IN ITALY AND IN SPAIN.
IV. REVIEW OF SIR W. SCOTT’S “TALES OF MY LANDLORD,” SERMONS, &C.
Octavo, with Map and other Illustrations, Fourth Edition, 14s.
RUSSIAN SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA IN THE AUTUMN OF 1852.
WITH A VOYAGE DOWN THE VOLGA AND A TOUR THROUGH THE COUNTRY OF THE DON
COSSACKS.
By Laurence Oliphant, Esq.
Author of a “Journey to Nepaul,” &c.
“The latest and best account of the actual state of
Russia.”--_Standard._
“The book bears ex facie indisputable marks of the shrewdness,
quick-sightedness, candour, and veracity of the author. It is the
production of a gentleman, in the true English sense of the
word.”--_Daily News._
In Octavo, Illustrated with Engravings, price 12s. 6d.,
MINNESOTA AND THE FAR WEST.
By Laurence Oliphant, Esq.,
Late Civil Secretary and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs in
Canada; Author of “The Russian Shores of the Black Sea,” &c.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
Second Edition, Foolscap Octavo, price 4s.
LIFE IN THE FAR WEST.
By G. F. Ruxton, Esq.
“One of the most daring and resolute of travellers.... A volume fuller
of excitement is seldom submitted to the public.”--_Athenæum._
Two Volumes Octavo, with Maps, &c., price £1, 10s.
NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH SYRIA AND PALESTINE.
By Lieut. Van De Velde.
“He has contributed much to the knowledge of the country, and the
unction with which he speaks of the holy places which he has visited,
will commend the book to the notice of all religious readers. His
illustrations of Scripture are numerous and admirable.”--_Daily News._
Second Edition, in Crown Octavo, price 10s. 6d.
INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC: THE THEORY OF KNOWING AND BEING.
By James F. Ferrier, A.B., Oxon.
Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, St Andrews.
“It is a pleasure to meet with a man who, in these days of half-beliefs
and feeble assertions, will venture to speak thus strongly. It is a
still greater pleasure to meet with a man of profound thought and
astonishing subtlety, who is able to express the most abstruse meanings
in the most simple language, and to scatter the light spray of wit and
pleasantry over those abysses of thought which lead down to the terrible
Domdaniel roots of the ocean. We find it difficult to mention any other
English work on metaphysics, with even half its power of thought, which
can be compared with it in point of style. ‘The Institutes of
Metaphysic’ is indeed the most suggestive work on the subject that has
been published for many a long year, and it is the most
readable.”--_Daily News._
BURNETT TREATISE
(SECOND PRIZE.)
In One Vol. Octavo, price 10s. 6d.
THEISM: THE WITNESS OF REASON AND NATURE TO AN ALL-WISE AND BENEFICENT
CREATOR.
By the Rev. J. Tulloch, D.D.
Principal and Primarius Professor of Theology, St Mary’s College, St
Andrews.
ON THE ORIGIN AND CONNECTION OF THE GOSPELS OF MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE;
WITH SYNOPSIS OF PARALLEL PASSAGES AND CRITICAL NOTES.
By James Smith, Esq. of Jordanhill, F.R.S.
Author of the “Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul.” Medium Octavo, price
16s.
“Displays much learning, is conceived in a reverential spirit, and
executed with great skill.... No public school or college ought to be
without it.”--_Standard._
In Octavo, price 14s.
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANT REFUGEES.
By Prof. Charles Weiss of the Lycee Buonaparte.
“We have risen from the perusal of Mr Weiss’s book with feelings of
extreme gratification. The period embraced by this work includes the
most heart-stirring times of the eventful History of Protestantism, and
is of surpassing interest.”--_Britannia._
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO HER MAJESTY.
_NOW COMPLETED_,
In Two large Volumes Royal Octavo, embellished with 1353 Engravings,
THE BOOK OF THE GARDEN.
By Charles M‘Intosh,
Late Curator of the Royal Gardens of His Majesty the King of the
Belgians, and latterly of those of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, at
Dalkeith Palace.
_Each Volume may be, had separately, viz._:--
I.--ARCHITECTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL. Pp. 776, embellished with 1073
Engravings, price £2., 10s.
II.--PRACTICAL GARDENING. Pp. 876, embellished with 280 Engravings,
price £1, 17s. 6d.
“We must congratulate both editor and publishers on the completion of
this work, which is every way worthy of the character of all concerned
in its publication. The scientific knowledge and great experience of the
editor in all that pertains to horticulture, not only as regards
cultivation, but as a landscape-gardener and garden architect, has
enabled him to produce a work which brings all that is known of the
various subjects treated of down to the present time; while the manner
in which the work is illustrated merits our highest approval.”--_The
Florist._
“Mr M‘Intosh’s splendid and valuable ‘Book of the Garden’ is at length
complete by the issue of the second volume. It is impossible in a notice
to do justice to this work. There is no other within our knowledge at
all to compare with it in comprehensiveness and ability; and it will be
an indispensable possession for the practical gardener, whether amateur
or professional.”--_The London Guardian._
In Two Volumes Royal Octavo, price £3, handsomely bound in cloth, with
upwards of 600 Illustrations.
THE BOOK OF THE FARM.
DETAILING THE LABOURS OF THE
FARMER, FARM-STEWARD, PLOUGHMAN, SHEPHERD, HEDGER, CATTLE-MAN,
FIELD-WORKER, AND DAIRY-MAID, AND FORMING A SAFE MONITOR FOR STUDENTS IN
PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE.
By Henry Stephens, F.R.S.E.
Corresponding Member of the Société Imperiale et Centrale d’Agriculture
of France, and of the Royal Agricultural Society of Galicia.
_THE EIGHTH THOUSAND._
“The best practical book I have ever met with.”--_Professor Johnston._
“We assure agricultural students that they will derive both pleasure and
profit from a diligent perusal of this clear directory to rural labour.
The experienced farmer will perhaps think that Mr Stephens dwells upon
some matters too simple or too trite to need explanation; but we regard
this as a fault leaning to virtue’s side in an instructional book. The
young are often ashamed to ask for an explanation of simple things, and
are too often discouraged by an indolent or supercilious teacher if they
do. But Mr. Stephens entirely escapes this error, for he indicates every
step the young farmer should take, and, one by one, explains their
several hearings.... We have thoroughly examined these volumes; but to
give a full notice of their varied and valuable contents would occupy a
larger space than we can conveniently devote to their discussion; we
therefore, in general terms, commend them to the careful study of every
young man who wishes to become a good practical farmer.”--_Times._
“A work, the excellence of which is too well known to need any remarks
of ours.”--_Farmers’ Magazine._
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
style of the architure=> style of the architecture {pg 90}
covered with magnicent=> covered with magnificent {pg 328}