public opinion against hypocrisy in California, as more than one clerical renegade has found, to his discomfiture.  The pretense to virtue is the one vice that is not forgiven.  If a man be not a liar, few questions are asked, least of all the delicate one as to the “name he went by in the states.”  What we commonly call public opinion — the cut and dried decision on social and civic questions — is made up in the house.  It is essentially feminine in its origin, the opinion of the home circle as to how men should behave.  In California there is little which corresponds to the social atmosphere pervading the snug, white-painted, green-blinded New England villages, and this little exists chiefly in the southern counties, in communities of people transported in block — traditions, conventionalities, prejudices, and all.  There is, in general, no merit attached to conformity, and one may take a wide range of rope without necessarily arousing distrust.  Speaking broadly, in California the virtues of life spring from within, and are not prescribed from without.  The young man who is decent only because he thinks that some one is looking, would do well to stay away.  The stern law of individual responsibility turns the fool over to the fool-killer without a preliminary trial.  No finer type of man can be found in the world than the sober Californian; and yet no coast is strewn with wrecks more pitiful.

There are some advantages in the absence of a compelling force of public opinion.  One of them is found in the strong self-reliance of men and women who have made and enforced their own moral standards.  With very many men, life in California brings a decided strengthening of the moral fibre.  They must reconsider, justify, and fight for their standards of action; and by so doing they become masters of themselves.  With men of weak nature the result is not so encouraging.  The disadvantage is shown in lax business methods, official carelessness and corruption, the widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, and the general lack of pride in their work shown by artisans and craftsmen.

In short, California is a man’s land, with male standards of action — a land where one must give and take, stand and fall, as a man.  With the growth of woman’s realm of homes and houses, this will slowly change.  It is changing now, year by year, for good and ill; and soon California will have a public opinion.  Her sons will learn to fear “the rod behind the looking-glass,” and to shun evil not only because it is vile, but because it is improper.

Contact with the facts of nature has taught the Californian something of importance.  To have elbow-room is to touch nature at more angles; and whenever she is touched she is an insistent teacher.  Whatever is to be done, the typical Californian knows how to do it, and how to do it well.  He is equal to every occasion.  He can cinch his own saddle, harness his own team, bud his own grapevines, cook his own