ABSTRACT
It was a period of marvellous "boom" in West and East alike. The first great trans-continental line to San Francisco bad only recently been completed, and the inhabitants of that city and of California generally o.nticipated that the development of the Pacific Slope would rival or even surpass the older settlements of the Eastern States. The farmers of the West, not as yet crushed down under the weight of mortgages as they too often are to-day, were prospering in every way, and, unprecedented though the expenditure om·ail ways had been, the1·e was every reason to believe that it would fully repay the investors and benefit the entire country. Those who have been in the United States at such times know the sensation of general wellbeing and universal progress which ill felt throughout the country. Nowhere is a period of prosperity more suddenly and surely exhibited in the lives of the people. During these years when the losses by the war had been replaced and the whole nation thought itself on the full flow of continuous improvement, everybody was making money and nearly everybody was spending it. Good trade in one quarter made good trade in another. The spread of luxury even in the villages of the far West was something astound.
