William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

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Chapter 17: White women.

Not even his squaw! White men have learned a good deal from the Indian, but they have not learned to stake their wives, like Utes and Bannocks, on the chances of a throw. White females are still too rare and precious on this coast; some cynics say too rare and precious for their own well-being, not to mention the well-being of the Commonwealth. Nature puts the sexes on the earth in pairs, and man destroys that balance at the cost of his moral death.

In California there are five White men to two White women; in Oregon there are four White men to three White women; in Nevada there are three White men to one White woman; in Washington there are two White men to each White woman. Under social arrangements so abnormal, a White