The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-01-20


A San Francisco correspondent Of the Gin
cinnati Commercial says:
This city Is Caiifornia-yes. even the PE-
citic slope-no less arbitrarily than Paris Is
France. The gate Of Commerce Is the front
door Of Fashion less than twenty years sgo
an avalanche Of the splendid, adventurous
manhood swept upon these shores, giving
the worlds current history some rev,
strange pages, aud contributing to social
science many facts that were as good As new,
because they have been forgotten since the
ancient, unreeorded searches for gold. The
brawny, bristling, elbowing community that
sprang here in what are called the early days
was an eddying river of Justly human animals
all ready TO get rich and TO get out, all In
spired BY the intense energy of selhshness.
That miner was king who could work the
longest and stand the most water in his
boots. The weakling who had backaches
and headaches, though his brain was the
largest and nimblest, had TO fall 10 the rear
and do the cooking. A case knife to seape
the gold out Of the creyices, and pan to wash
away the sand and clay, were the symbols
of rank; and he who could fourish them the
most hours out of the twenfy-four was the
duke or the prince royal Of California
Gold was garnered by the ounce and
the nugget, and in that way, too, 1t
was spent. The big spree, in which the
heart was drowned, sometimes cost fstful
Womsn was eliminated from the community
Society was harsh, unsteady, reckless, up
roarious The States 10 those days seemed
so horribly distant that faint natures perish
ed of inconsistencies, and evil natures chang
ed their names, blurred out old ties, and be-
gan new malevolent existence. Nature
herself was so fresh and startling In Cali
fornia, that the early emigrants found 1t not
he To- IA hof fhax urn ta IN
world, and that the past had drifted into
oblivion and left them absolyed.
This is changed now, but California society
shows the scars of its early conflicts The
present proponderance OF men over women
Is two TO one. The disproportion is still
broad enough TO work evils and 20 foster
all that is willful, unstable and wicked in
the female heart. If the San Francisco Of
to-day must have q psendonym, let 1t be
subject to write about, and shall barely
touch it with the lancet If some American
Yeuillot wishes to go at the tumor with
radical intent and the whole case of surgical
instruments, he will find the field clear,
and the excresence one whose successful
excision will get his name into the papers
and into books. They say (humorously,
presume, that when, In 1850, the man on
the lookout in San Francisco Bay deserted
a sail approaching, he signalled to 1t, Have
you any women on board 2 and the answer,
whatever 1t proved to be, was waved upto
Telegraph Hill and thence to the hive of
men In the city below.
Woman here occupies, and has always
occupied, an anomalous position. She en-
joys every facility to become spoiled erea-
ture-spoiled with petting and Indulgence.
Her yanities are hyper;rophied; her best
impulses slnmber. That there are many,
women in California as gentle, true, honest
and noble as exist In the world, firmly and
gladly believe; but there is an undue null
tiplicity of advenfuresses, and worse. The
region is crude, and of such Is their king
dom Of plumber and Paradise.
Whatever the past may have been, and
whatever injury 1t may have done the pre-
sent, society in San francisco is growing
more decisiyely wholesome every year. The
exterior society Is even more gay than in
New York The women dress in tbs ex-
tremest fashion, and spend more on their
raiment than any other creatures in the
world.
They promenade along the arbitrary side
of Montgomery street, especially Of Saturday
afternoons: and furnish panorama Of
beauty and costly cosmopolitan
fabrics that can hardly be matched outside
the flashing capitals of the world. There
Is no need Of rouge In San Francisco. The
chill, suappish sea breeze fetcles the blood
10 the cheek of even the brunette, and it i'm
parts, too, a little buoyancy to the gait that
is not associated with our ideas Of walking
down Broadway The fashions barely bios
som in Paris, you know, before they are
dead ripe on Fifth avenue the sympathetic
flower has opened in San Francisco. With
this special difference, however, that, strict
ly speaking, this city has no Summer fash
ions. 1t IS never Winter here, they say.
can swear that 1t is never Summer"