Status Updates From American Slavery, American ...

"The courts, for example, prescribed penances for couples who appeared with children too soon after marriage, requiring them in the traditional manner to appear at church the next Sunday dressed in white robes and carrying white wands"

"In boom country not everyone strikes it rich; and even those who come in from the hills with a pocketful of gold generally give it up in a hurry—for drink, for women, even for food and clothing at bonanza prices. Life is cheap, but nothing else is."