ABSTRACT
This chapter traces destitution and distress in California to the monopoly of land. The characteristics of the principal business—mining—gave a color to all California thought and feeling. It fostered a reckless, generous, independent spirit, with a strong disposition to “take chances” and “trust to luck.” As for the management, one has only to read the California papers to see how frequent are detentions and collisions. Some few Eastern papers get to California overland, but the California papers only get east by way the Isthmus. When the law directing the transmission of printed matter overland went into effect, some of the California newsmen had their bundles sent that way, but after losing thousands of dollars by delays, they have in great measure abandoned the experiment. Some of the Eastern journals continue to discuss the uprising of the working people in New York and elsewhere.
