In 1855 an ex-miner lamented that nineteenth-century California "can and does furnish the best bad things," including "purer liquors...finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans [sic]" than anywhere else in America. Lured by boons of gold and other exploitable resources, California's settler popula “Premier historian Gary Noy has created the finest and most entertaining compilation ever of stories documenting 'the best bad things' of nineteenth century California.? Never before has this been so well told and supported by such a vast array of primary sources.”-Gary Kurutz, Director Emeritus, California History Room and Special Collections, California State Library