The
now regulated business circles, extending with wonderful elasticity,
attract home and foreign pilgrims of character. Though the Aspasias
of Paris, New Orleans, and Australia throng in; though New York
sends its worthless womanhood in floods, there are even now worthy
home circles by the Golden Gate. Church, school, and family begin
to build upon solid foundations. All the government bureaus are in
working order. The Custom House is already known as the "Virginia
Poor House." The Post-Office and all Federal places teem with the
ardent, haughty, and able ultra Democrats of the sunny South. The
victory of the Convention bids fair to be effaced in the high-handed
control of the State by Southern men. As the rain falleth on the
just and unjust, so does the tide of prosperity enrich both good
and bad. Vice, quickly nourished, flaunts its early flowers. The
slower growth of virtue is yet to give golden harvest of gathered
sheaves in thousands of homes yet to be in the Golden State. Long
after the maddened wantons and noisy adventurers have gone the
way of all "light flesh and corrupt blood," the homes will stand.
Sailing vessels stream in from the ports of the world. On the narrow
water-front, Greek and Lascar, Chinaman and Maltese, Italian and
Swede, Russian and Spaniard, Chileno and Portuguese jostle the
men of the East, South, and the old country.
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