Year: 1873

!


California Nomads.


tFrom the San Francisco Bulletin.1


The nomads of California are still


moving on. The ocean heads them OF


on the west; but there is still a vas


wilderness into which they withdraw


and are lost for time to all the bettel


influences of civilization. The cattle


nomads once ruled the country. They


were opposed to schools, churches


newspapers, improved highways an6


cultivated fields. They had large bands


of retainers, selected mostly from the


lower class of the Mexican population,
who were content to ride a mustang,
| swing RATA and to spend their small


wages at an occasional fandango. II


was not necessary that the cattle-owneI
have good title to foot of land. II


was enough for him that he had pos
session of territory as large as the state
of Rhode Island, and that by sheer
brute force he could hold possession,
driving out all who wanted to enclose
small tracts for farms, and to live in a
more decent and progressive way. For
years these nomads were the terror of
the country. Every cattle-owner had a
small army. He might be hospitable
enough in his way, but he balanced this
virtue by absorbing everything on the
vast tracts on which his herds roamed.


Now and then we hear puerile re-
gret that the days are gone when the
host gave the stranger fresh horse for
a weary one, and for that lazy and un-
prosperous era when there was nothing
to do except to strip hides and barter
them for high-colored calico. These
nomads have had their day, and no SEN
sible citizen wants to see that part of
our history reproduced. It was a call
ing which has been supplanted by a
system of agriculture which does not
scoff at the decencies of civilization.


The "pike." is still nomad. But
then he has become humanized to some
extent. He still clings to fried bacon
and corn whisky, and does not like to
be taxed for school-houses and churches,
and has a lingering weakness for white
washing the stumps of his trees. But
his children are better educated than he
is, so that the next generation have no
quarrel with civilization. There are
still, however, a large number of these
nomads carting their traps, wives and
children from one obscure nook to an
other, and everywhere i'll content that
settlers come in, who build roads and
comfortable dwellings, and abstain from
work on Sunday. The valleys among
the mountains have large representa-
ton from this class. Most of them hold
their claims on speculation, and are
ready to sell out any day and "move
on" The men who follow them drive
the stakes permanently.


The mining nomads have been thinned
out very much within the last ten years.
Vein mining requires capital and gives
permanent employment. And even
placer mining, as now prosecuted, re-
quires large concentration of capital.
Miners no longer move on because they
cannot make an ounce day. Most of
them work for fixed wages, and if not
always content, know better than to be
wandering from one camp to
another. But there are large number
of nomads who have at some time
who have become incorrigible
tramps. They are not content with
anything less than an entire silver mine,
and if they owned one they never would
uSNO1OP 1hO WIZ SAOOPO III
his blankets expects some day to be-
come millionaire, and to come to this
estate without much work, but by
"power of whisky" interspersed with
some lucky speculations. He will
probably be nomad all his life, a sort
of mountain gypsy who has had a per-
petual tussle with fortune and got the
worst of it.


Then there is the regular brigade of
blanket nomads, which holds on from
year to year, filled up by class of
who never care to work more
than two or three months continuously,
and cannot always get more employ
ment in one place. A few of them are
good men, who will step out some day
into better positions. As for the rest,
it is matter of supreme Indifference
what happens on the morrow.


On the whole, the nomads are thin
ming out, fact which indicates an era
Of greater prosperity, of permanent
order and progress. Coed men find |
their work and fall to, having no time to |
wander about. A greater degree of
comfort 10 within the reach of the
.aborer. And many of the restless,
class have been anchored at
asst by getting hold of cheap lands and
driving stake in the soil.