The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-03-13

noon. Strange to say, it is a penal Of
Tense for butcher to sell meat on that
day. Preaching is at sad discount
and the churches are going to rack.
THE WOMEN
AS to its immortality we have all the
adjunctive vices of fast living. Drink
ing and gambling are not confined to
men, but are INDUCED in to excess by
very many women of the fashionable
element. \ luxurious establishment
kept by woman is made a resort by
rich mems wives and other adventurous
women for gambling Oftentimes from
the excitement of the theatre they pass
to the intoxication of wine and the
gaming table, their orgies extending
until dawn. The whereabouts and char
acter of this establishment are not
widely known, the secret being yell
guarded and not in danger of betrayal
by those who participate in the shameful
and corrupting pursuit. Nor is even the
opium den without its attraction for the
women. l do not mean to represent
that the habit of opium smoking is
common among the women of the city,
but from what | have heard there is
doubtless great deal of it done. |
speak of those things as appearance
and facts, and not with scorn or any IN
worthy feeling, wishing to be understood
at the same time as making exception in
point of intelligence, morality and re-
tinement in favor of many good people
whose presence serves to ameliorate the
gross character with which this popula-
ton is marked by the ignorant, vulgar
and brutal element.
DISHONESTY.
As to dishonesty, the average Cali
fornian in his dealings seems to be not
only devoid of personal honor and
pride, but likewise of policy too. AL
ways on the jump to beat each other
they We're finely duped and beaten by a
couple of Irish barkeepers, who set them
wild on mining stocks and quietly raked
in their accumulations of years. They
took the surplus funds of the merchants,
professional men, mechanicsand laborers.
Not content with casting their bank bal
ances into this gambling pool, and find
ing to their horror that it was bottom
less pit, these people continue to nibble
at the bait thrown to them by willy
scoundrels who control the mining
stocks, and upon the promise of dead
sure point" borrow hundred here and
thousand there, and lose again and
again, until finally, when they withdraw
money from their business to pay in.
debtedness thus incurred, they are COM
PEELED TO mortgage store, or house and
lot, and it soon becomes a question of
serious concern about their ordinary eX-
penses and the interest on their indebted
ness. And now the savings banks are
overloaded with mortgages. Suppose
the crop fails, what will happenl Cen
eral bankruptcy, and noquestion about it.
They speak of Italian skies here in
California. and We have something akin
to that if we can so compare about four
months steady sunshine from the first of
September up to date, which has been
free from the miserable typhoons which
rule our streets in the Summer months.
But there is nothing balmy or mellow
about this With the sunshine there
has come severe frost, which is thought
to have gone far toward killing the
wheat crop, and until recently there has
been a dry, cold north wind absorbing
moisture from the earth and rendering it
dry as bone dust. South of the Sacra-
mento river the cattle have already
suffered for want of food The rains
should have commenced six weeks ago,
although they did not last year until
January I, and the crop was fair, but
last year the frost was slight and there
was not much north wind to extract the
moisture from the soil, SO that to-day it
is mooted question, whether, if the
rainy season should commence in few
days, We might have good crop. Some
say we would, others that the frost has
settled the question against us.
MINING AND FARMING.
The mining paid no dividends
10 speak of in the past year, but absorbed
as assessments sl3,000,00O. The recent
stock Job in Sierra Nevada and Union
and other Cemstock mines, having ena-
bled the Nevada bank people to unload
large amounts of worthless stock, has