ion, and a considerable proportion of the towns and smaller
cities, particularly in the south, adopt prohibition. In most of the
rest high licence is more or less strictly enforced.

The total assessed valuation of property grew from $666,399,985 in 1880
to $1,217,648,683 in 1900 and $1,879,728,763 in 1907. In 1904, when the
U.S. Census Report showed California to be the twenty-first state of the
Union in population but the sixth in wealth, the total estimated true
value of all property was $4,115,491,106, of which $2,664,472,025 was
the value of real property and improvements thereon. The per capita
wealth of the state was then reported as $2582.32, being exceeded only
by the three sparsely settled states of Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. In
1898 California had the largest savings-bank deposit per depositor
($637.75) of any state in the Union; the _per caput_ deposit was $110 in
1902, and about one person in seven was a depositor. The state bonded
debt in 1907 amounted to three and a half million dollars, of which all
but $767,529.03 was represented by bonds purchased by the state and held
for the school and university funds; for the common school fund on the
1st of July 1907 there were held bonds for $4,890,950, and $800,000 in
cash available for investment; for the university fund there were held
$751,000 in state bonds, and a large amount in other securities. The
total bonded county indebtedness was $4,879,600 in 1906 (not including
that of San Francisco, a consolidated city and county, which was
$4,568,600). A homestead, entered upon record and limited to a value of
$5000 if held by the head of a family and to a value of $1000 if held by
one not the head of a family, is exempt from liability for debts, except
for a mortgage, a lien before it was claimed as a homestead or a lien
afterward for improvements. A homestead held by a married man cannot be
mortgaged without consent of his wife.

Under an act approved on the 25th of March 1903 a state board of
charities and corrections,--consisting of six members, not more than
three being of the same political party, appointed by the governor, with
the advice and consent of the senate, and holding office for twelve
years, two retiring at the end of each quadrennium,--investigates,
examines, and makes "reports upon the charitable, correctional and penal
institutions of the state," excepting the Veterans' Home at Yountville,
Napa county, and the Woman's Relief Corps Home at Ev