Credit in these parts has passed into a superstition. I have seen

a strong, violent man struggling for months to recover a debt, and

getting nothing but an exchange of waste paper. The very

storekeepers are averse to asking for cash payments, and are more

surprised than pleased when they are offered. They fear there must

be something under it, and that you mean to withdraw your custom

from them. I have seen the enterprising chemist and stationer

begging me with fervour to let my account run on, although I had my

purse open in my hand; and partly from the commonness of the case,

partly from some remains of that generous old Mexican tradition

which made all men welcome to their tables, a person may be

notoriously both unwilling and unable to pay, and still find credit

for the necessaries of life in the stores of Monterey. Now this

villainous habit of living upon "tick" has grown into Californian

nature. I do not mean that the American and European storekeepers

of Monterey are as lax as Mexicans; I mean that American farmers in

many parts of the State expect unlimited credit, and profit by it

in the meanwhile, without a thought for consequences. Jew

storekeepers have already learned the advantage to be gained from

this; they lead on the farmer into irretrievable indebtedness, and

keep him ever after as their bond-slave hopelessly grinding in the

mill. So the whirligig of time brings in its revenges, and except

that the Jew knows better than to foreclose, you may see Americans

bound in the same chains with which they themselves had formerly

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>