hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

70B POPULATION AND SOCIETY.
and in 1856, while purifying the country and imparting
a feeling of security, served to intensify the
bad reputation cast upon California." With more settled
conditions and better official supervision this
blemish was almost effaced, when the outburst in
1877 of the long smouldering anti-Chinese riot brought
out the stain once more, for a time only.
The long and costly journey, the ruling high wages,
and the slight cost of subsistence have thus far proved
a check to mendicancy. On the other hand, the roaming
instinct that brought men to this coast, the
wandering life connected with placer mining, and a
mild climate, fostered a tendency to idleness and vagabondage,
and bred in the country the tramp, in the
town the hoodlum, the latter a genus per se"
The democratic equality fostered by mining life, and
by the ready acquisition of independence and wealth,
is still marked, but class distinctions are growing in the
cities, and spreading throughout the state, under the
gradual equalization of wages with eastern rates, the
clearness of land, and the expansion of monopolies.
Nevertheless, the influence of workingmen was strong
enough, a few years ago, to pass a state constitution of
somewhat socialistic stamp, whereby much capital was
driven from the country.*
83 Impressed by the exaggerated stories by favorite writers like Bret Harte,
Mark Twain, 8. Taylor. See former chapters on S. F. society and crime,'
and my volumes on Popular Tribunals. It must be admitted, however, that
shooting at sight was not infrequent, and that the law against duelling long
remained a dead letter.
94 Applied to the vicious and low youth. Some derive the term from
1 huddle. A former member of the fraternity says that it was once more
respectable, and that one gang of boys adopted the designation Hoodoo, the
supposed correct form of negro voodooism, with a language marked by lum
endings—hence hoodoolums. A connection may also be traced with the
hounds, houndlings, of 1849. In the chapter on manufactures I have
pointed to seasons, machinery, and Chinese as additional causes for idleness.
Turk, 8onoma, MS., 15-19, describes the tramp evil in the country; also
CaL Crimes Scraps, 138, et seq. A sparse population and the transport of
treasure still tempt highwaymen.
35 But there was plenty left. The state contains more millionaires in
proportion to its population than perhaps any country in the world. The
state passed a ten-hour law on May 17, 1853, and an eight-hour law on FeK
21, 1868. Labor unions are very strong, yet too exclusive for the benefit of
the rising youth. A labor exchange received state appropriation. CaL