CALIFORNIA ON CHARACTER.
Life in California impresses new features on old characters, as a fresh mintage on antiquated coins. The man whose prudence in the States never forsakes him, and whose practical maxim is, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” will here throw all his birds into the bushes, seemingly for the mere excitement of catching them again. He finds himself in an atmosphere so strongly stirred and stirring, that he must whirl with it, and soon enjoys the strong eddy almost as much as the still pool. He may hang perhaps a moment on the verge of a cataract, but if it spreads below to a tranquil lake, down he goes, and emerges from the boiling gulf calm and confident as if lord of the glittering trident. Or he may have been, while in the States, remarked for his parsimony, pinching every cent as it dropped into the contribution-box as if there was a spasm between his avarice and alms. But in California that cent so awfully pinched soon takes the shape of a doubloon, and slides from his hand too easily to leave even the odor of its value behind. I have known five men, who never contributed a dollar in the States for the support of a clergyman subscribe here five hundred dollars each per annum, merely to encourage, as they termed it, “a good sort of a thing in the community.” I have seen a miser, who would have sold a hob-nail from his heel for old iron, in bartering off his saddle throw in the horse; and then exchange a lump of perfectly pure gold for one half quartz, merely because it struck his fancy! Such are some of the anomalies in character which a life in California produces. If you doubt it, make the experiment, and you will soon find your own heart, though gnarled as a knot, cracking open, and turning inside out like a kernel of parched corn.
HEADS AND TAILS.
My friend William Blackburn, alcalde of Santa Cruz, often hits upon a method of punishing a transgressor, which has some claims to originality as well as justice. A young man was brought before him, charged with having sheared, close to the stump, the sweeping tail of another’s horse. The evidence of the nefarious act, and of the prisoner’s guilt, was conclusive. The alcalde sent for a barber, ordered the offender to be seated, and directed the tonsor to shear and shave him clean of his dark flowing locks and curling moustache, in which his pride and vanity lay This was hardly done, when Mr. B, counsel for the prisoner entered, and moved an arrest of judgment. “Oh, yes,” said the alcalde, “as the shears and razor have done their work, judgment may now rest.” “And under what law,” inquired the learned counsel, “has this penalty been inflicted?” “Under the Mosaic,” replied the alcalde: “that good old rule—eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hair for hair.” “But,” said the biblical jurist, “that was the law of the Old Testament, which has been abrogated in the New.” “But we are still living,” returned the alcalde, “under the old dispensation, and must continue there till Congress shall sanction a new order of things.” “Well, well,” continued the counsel, “old dispensation or new, the penalty was too severe—a man’s head against a horse’s tail!” “That is not the question,” rejoined the alcalde: “it is the hair on the one against the hair on the other; now as there are forty fiddles to one wig in California, the inference is just, that horsehair of the two is in most demand, and that the greatest sufferer in this case is still the owner of the steed.” “But, then,” murmured the ingenious counsel, “you should consider the young man’s pride.” “Yes, yes,” responded the alcalde, “I considered all that, and considered too the stump of that horse’s tail, and the just pride of his owner. Your client will recover his crop much sooner than the other, and will manage, I hope, to keep it free of the barber’s department in this court;” and with this, client and counsel were dismissed.
SPANISH COURTESIES.
The courtesies characteristic of the Spanish linger in California, and seem, as you encounter them amid the less observant habits of the emigration, like golden-tinted leaves of Autumn, still trembling on their stems in the rushing verdure of Spring. They exhibit themselves in every phase of society and every walk of life. You encounter them in the church, in the fandango, at the bridal altar, and the hearse: they adorn youth, and take from age its chilling severity. They are trifles in themselves, but they refine social intercourse, and soften its alienations. They may seem to verge upon extremes, but even then they carry some sentiment with them, some sign of deference to humanity. I received a cluster of wild-flowers from a lady, with a note in pure Castilian, and bearing in the subscription the initials of the words, which rudely translated mean, “I kiss your hand.” One might have felt tempted to write her back—
Thou need’st not, lady, stoop so low
To print the gentle kiss:
Can hands return what lips bestow,
Or blush to show their bliss?