These cheap theatres are a great institution and play to crowded houses all night long. They tried to start a palm garden theatre where one could smoke, but it did not turn out a success owing to the chill of the evening making it unpleasant to sit outside. In the other houses they prohibit smoking. During the winter, too, the horse races, which last for a couple of months, bring lots of people and money to the town, which has also become quite a centre of boxing. Boating, fishing, and sea bathing are to be had at any of the numerous beaches about twenty minutes’ car ride from the centre of the city, so that forms of amusement are plentiful. CHAPTER XXIII "Graft"—Seeking Contracts in Los Angeles—In Charge of Street Work—Crooked Business. Winston Churchill’s _Coniston_ and _Mr. Crewe’s Career_ explain the methods of bosses and railway presidents, and their conflicts or combinations for the robbing of the public in America. For the railways it may perhaps be said that they have to protect themselves against the “Bosses,” and for the “Bosses” that they are what the people make them: at any rate, I need not discuss the forms of that business immorality against which Mr. Roosevelt has struggled. But I will try to give some idea of the rottenness of the contracting business and the city officials, and truly it was awful. But what can be expected when contractors make their men scoundrels in order to hold their jobs, and teach them to rob the public, and then are horrified when they are robbed or cheated by their own men! Then the men, many of whom have no idea of honour, are all the time trying to hurt one another in order to show up well with the company; of this I shall say more later on. Those who are inclined to seek fortune in America must reckon with such difficulties.