[56] Introduction to volume ii of Bret Harte’s works.
[57] “Alta California” of July 21, 1851.
[58] The Reverend William Taylor, “California Life.”
[59] In one day two women, crazed by the sufferings of their children, drowned themselves in the Humboldt River.
[60] E. W. Farnham, “California Indoors and Out.”
[61] Before the Civil War, the treatment of women, even in the Eastern cities, was almost invariably courteous and respectful. It was the exception, in New York or Boston, when a man neglected to give up his seat in a public conveyance to a woman; whereas, nowadays the exception is the other way. Profound respect shown to woman as woman is incompatible with a society founded upon an aristocratic, plutocratic, or caste system. It was never known in England. It is the product of a real democracy and of that alone; and in this country, as we become more and more plutocratic, the respect for women diminishes. The great cities of the United States are fast approaching, in this regard, the brutality of London, Paris and Berlin.
[62] In the poem, Concepcion de Arguello.
[63] H. A. Wise, “Los Gringos.”
[64] H. R. Helper, “The Land of Gold.”
[65] Horace Greeley, “An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco.”