The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1875-03-12
~Aristocracy.
[san FRANCISCO Chronicle

,eedingly anxious to know what int1u-
ence the bonanza will have upon social
life in San Francisco. Some are of the
opinion that we shall experience here
d condition of things like to the Eas-
tern and Northern States during and
&fter the war, when great fortunes fell
to the army contractors and h lucky
SPECTATORS in petroleum that, as in the
did communities in the Atlantic States
En- aristocracy of shoddy and Oil was
blilt up, now in California there will
be a bonanza aristOcracy; tlab the great
fortunes gathered from stock and min
ing ventures will bring to the social
surface the illiterate and vulgar, and
that u well-born and blue blood peO-
pie will be compelled to endure the
shame and modification OF being out
dressed and ~outjeweled by the vulgar
rich. This danger is not imminent, and
the shock of sudden wealth ls less mark
ed in effects in San Francisco than per-
tfaps in any other city OF the world.
In the first place, we are nearly all
of us but adventures ourselves; SO few
of us ever had grandfathers that we
somehow do not feel the loss. Wehave
some people among us who were most
excellently born, descended from the
creme de la creme of the azure blue of
Beacon Hill, Boston, whose remote
ancestors we're pirates, their late des.
pendants slave-dealers, and numbers OF
their relatives of the present genera
tion are engaged in the bold pursuit OF
Goldfish off Banks of Newfoundland
and the spouting sperm whale OF the
.Arctic Seas. We have some eminent
3eitizens descended from those early
PATRONS who cultivated vegetable
| gardens in the vicinity of the City of
New York; early planters of early cab
bages upon the island of Manhattan,
whose ancestors titled their own acres
] till vulgar enterprise pushed them from
their dunghills and converted their
| farms into town lots. We have a num-
Der of members of first families of the
| Old Dominion, descendants from Poca-
hontas and John Smith, or in direct
line from Washington some whose an
I.eestry may be traced to the auction
block, where maidens were snapped
for tobacco; others of HuguenOt de-
scent, though originally t~ailors, shoe
makers and vulgar artisans, their base
mechanics blood having been purified
by persecution and kept indebted by
freedom from labor ever since. We
| have, of course, some most excellent
people whose patents of nobility only
run back to the ownership of negroes
at the South. These more select classes
are, however, in the minority; the great
mass Of us are baseborn descendants OF
farmers, mechanics, traders and labor
| ers-born without spoon of any kind
in our mouths-brOught up with the
assistance of two-tined forks. Some OF
us are immigrants who came around
the Horn, or via the isthmus, in the
steering. We are adventures, brought
together from all parts of the United
! States and of the world. We all came
1 poor, and in the earlier history of Cali
fornia we engaged in all sorts of pur-
| suits, all kinds of labor. Our object
was to get rich, and as there was nc
f" society,"" with it's imperious laws
making labor dishonorable, we worked
we mined, toiled on farms, kept peanut
stands, sold vegetables, manufactured
and sold bad whisky, kept livery sta
bles, kept school, ran omnibus lines
and corner groceries, were blacksmiths
and foundrymen, sold drugs at retail
and gambled a little on the sly. We
were steamboat clerks, ginger-pop man.
u~facturers, peddlers, superintendent
| of mines; some of is worked by the
month in saw-mills and ON board river
craft, or earned an honest dollar al
boatmen, stevedores and longshoremen
some of us were common sailors, who
having come ashore from men-of-War
neglected to return, and Tor a subsis.
tence washed dishes in restaurants o.
waited in hotels. Our wives kept mil.
| linery stores and we carried home the
| band boxes; our mothers-in-law KEEP
bOarding-houses or furnished rooms
and we staid with the old lady till we
got rich and ashamed, and then pen.
stoned her off to retire from the bust,
ness. Some OF us practieed law, o
snapped things, OF practiced medicine
or preached, OF turned Stockholders
1--WE all invested our earnings in mines
real estate,Smercantile ventures, gas
water, and railroad franchises. We
have obtained m0nopolies in gold, land
mines, mills, gas, water, ice, milk
chemicals, grain, lumber, steamboats,
and express companies. We have cor.
nered mines and merchandise; we have
pooled stocks; we have gambled il
every venture that offered a chance oi
gain. We have loaned our money a.
usurious rates of interest.
Those who ran the gauntle success
fully and got rich have organized them.
selves into a " good society," and, while
they have not driven the well-bern anC
highly cultivated from their association
have put them upon their good hehay
ior-haye said to them that they ar,
only allowed upon ~sufferance, and will
only be tolerated so long as they comply
with the rules that govern the new or
~ganizati0n. The first and leading ar
ticle of the constitution of our society is
"No reflections upon the past y en-
asking questions = no raking up of an
cestOrs, and all that antiquated non
sense = 10 hints at former employ
ment.p Like the clown in the circus
with all our spots and s~pangles, " Her
we are, NJ. Merryman; how do you lik'
us n When new candidates come for
ward for admission, all we demand i
that they must be well-to do, &c goot
character, wear good clothes, and b
fully up to the proper standard Of de
pertinent. lie they do not wear thl
regalia and pay their dues, they ar
dropped out. The real truth is, on
people are all standing upon so nearl,
the same plane in point of birth, edII
cation, employment and general repect
ability-We are all so nearly adventures
SO new to each other, and SO really indif
ferent to the eXactions and standard
that older communities have set up TO
tiiemselves-that when some good, hon
est gentleman, or some goodWortly an
modest gentle woman, with som AM
daughters properly reared, enriched b
sudden fortune, comes knocking at th
door and asking admission to our secie
ty, it gives them an immediate welcome
Now and then some of our people, VIII
had grandfatheFs, sllrug their shoulder
and scoWl. Now and then some of th
newly enriched put on airs with thei
diamonds but, as O. rule, we oOn be