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Bryant, Edwin

"What I Saw in California"


"JOHN WARWICK,
Smelter and refiner, 17, John-Street."

INCONVENIENCES OF TOO MUCH GOLD.--The following letter (January 12)
from Captain Fulsom, of the United States Service, writing from San
Francisco, confirms the fact of the difficulty of procuring servants,
or indeed manual assistance of any description:--
"All sorts of labour is got at enormous rates of compensation. Common
clerks and salesmen in the stores about town often receive as high as
2500 dollars and their board. The principal waiter in the hotel where I
board is paid 1700 dollars per year, and several others from 1200 to
1500 dollars! I fortunately have an Indian boy, or I should be forced
to clean my own boots, for I could not employ a good body servant for
the full amount of my salary as a government officer. I believe every
army officer in California, with one or two exceptions, would have
resigned last summer could they have done it, and been free at once to
commence for themselves. But the war was not then terminated, and no
one could hope to communicate with Washington correspondents, to get an
answer in less than six, and perhaps ten, months.


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