LIFE AT HIGH SPEED
A most useful quality for a California emigrant was one which the
Americans possess in a pre-eminent degree--a natural versatility of
disposition and adaptability to every description of pursuit or
occupation.
The numbers of the different classes forming the community were not in
the proportion requisite to preserve its equilibrium. Transplanting
oneself to California from any part of the world involved an outlay
beyond the means of the bulk of the laboring classes; and to those who
did come to the country, the mines were of course the great point of
attraction; so that in San Francisco the numbers of the laboring and of
the working classes generally, were not nearly equal to the demand. The
consequence was that laborers’ and mechanics’ wages were ridiculously
high; and, as a general thing, the lower the description of labor, or of
service, required, the more extravagant in proportion were the wages
paid. Sailors’ wages were two and three hundred dollars per month, and
there were hundreds of ships lying idle in the bay for want of crews to
man them even at these rates. Every ship, on her arrival, was
immediately deserted by all hands; for, of all people, sailors were the
most unrestrainable in their determination to go to the diggings; and
it was there a common saying, of the truth of which I saw myself many
examples, that sailors, niggers, and Dutchmen, were the luckiest men in
the mines: a very drunken old salt was always particularly lucky.
There was a great overplus of young men of education, who had never
dreamed of manual labor, and who found that their services in their
wonted capacities were not required in such a rough-and-ready,
every-man-for-himself sort of place. Hard work, however, was generally
better paid than head work, and men employed themselves in any way,
quite regardless of preconceived ideas of their own dignity. It was one
intense scramble for dollars--the man who got most was the best man--how
he got them had nothing to do with it. No occupation was considered at
all derogatory, and, in fact, every one was too much occupied with his
own affairs to trouble himself in the smallest degree about his
neighbor.
A man’s actions and conduct were totally unrestrained by the ordinary
conventionalities of civilized life, and, so long as he did not
interfere with the rights of others, he could follow his own course, for
good or for evil, with utmost freedom.
Among so many temptations to err, thrust prominently in one’s way,
without any social restraint to counteract them, it was not surprising
that many men were too weak for such a trial and, to use an expressive,
though not very elegant phrase, went to the devil. The community was
composed of isolated individuals, each quite regardless of the good
opinion of his neighbors; and, the outside pressure of society being
removed, men assumed their natural shape, and showed what they really
were, following their unchecked impulses and inclinations. The human
nature of ordinary life appeared in a bald and naked state, and the
natural bad passions of men, with all the vices and depravities of
civilization, were indulged with the same freedom which characterizes
the life of a wild savage.
There were, however, bright examples of the contrary. If there was a
lavish expenditure in ministering to vice, there was also munificence in
the bestowing of charity. Though there were gorgeous temples for the
worship of mammon, there was a sufficiency of schools and churches for
every denomination; while, under the influence of the constantly
increasing numbers of virtuous women, the standard of morals was
steadily improving, and society, as it assumed a shape and a form, began
to assert its claims to respect.
Although employment, of one sort or another, and good pay, were to be
had by all who were able and willing to work, there was nevertheless a
vast amount of misery and destitution. Many men had come to the country
with their expectations raised to an unwarrantable pitch, imagining that
the mere fact of emigration to California would insure them a rapid
fortune; but when they came to experience the severe competition in
every branch of trade, their hopes were gradually destroyed by the
difficulties of the reality.
Every kind of business, custom, and employment, was solicited with an
importunity little known in old countries, where the course of all such
things is in so well-worn a channel, that it is not easily diverted. But
here the field was open, and every one was striving for what seemed to
be within the reach of all--a foremost rank in his own sphere. To keep
one’s place in the crowd required an unremitted exercise of the same
vigor and energy which were necessary to obtain it; and many a man,
though possessed of qualities which would have enabled him to
distinguish himself in the quiet routine life of old countries, was
crowded out of his place by the multitude of competitors, whose
deficiency of merit in other respects was more than counterbalanced by
an excess of unscrupulous boldness and physical energy. A polished
education was of little service, unless accompanied by an unwonted
amount of democratic feeling; for the extreme sensitiveness which it is
otherwise apt to produce, unfitted a man for taking part in such a
hand-to-hand struggle with his fellow-men.
Drinking was the great consolation for those who had not moral strength
to bear up under their disappointments. Some men gradually obscured
their intellects by increased habits of drinking, and, equally
gradually, reached the lowest stage of misery and want; while others
went at it with more force, and drank themselves into _delirium tremens_
before they knew where they were. This is a very common disease in
California: there is something in the climate which superinduces it with
less provocation than in other countries.
But, though drunkenness was common enough, the number of drunken men one
saw was small, considering the enormous consumption of liquor.
The American style of drinking is so different from that in fashion in
the Old World, and forms such an important part of social intercourse,
that it certainly deserves to be considered one of the peculiar
institutions of the country.
In England a man reserves his drinking capacities to enhance the
enjoyment of the great event of the day, and to increase the comfortable
feeling of repletion which he experiences while ruminating over it.
Dinner divides his day into two separate existences, and drinking in the
forenoon suggests the idea of a man slinking off into out-of-the-way,
mysterious places, and boozily muddling himself in private with quart
pots of ale or numerous glasses of brandy-and-water.
With Americans, however, the case is very different. Dinner with them
forms no such comfortable epoch in their daily life: it brings not even
the hour of rest which is allowed to the laboring man--but it is one of
the necessities of human existence, and, as it precludes all other
occupations for the time being, it is despatched as quickly as possible.
They do not drink during dinner, nor immediately afterwards. The most
common excuse for declining the invitation of a friend to “take a
drink,” is “Thank you, I’ve just dined.” They make the voyage through
life under a full head of steam all the time; they live more in a given
time than other people, and naturally have recourse to constant
stimulants to make up for the want of intervals of _abandon_ and repose.
The necessary amount of food they eat at stated hours, but their
allowance of stimulants is divided into a number of small doses, to be
taken at short intervals throughout the day.
So it is that a style of drinking, which would ruin a man’s character in
this or any other country where eating and drinking go together, is in
the States carried on publicly and openly. The bars are the most
favorite resort, being situated in the most frequented and conspicuous
places; and here, at all hours of the day, men are gulping down fiery
mouthfuls of brandy or gin, rendered still more pungent by the addition
of other ingredients, and softened down with a little sugar and water.
No one ever thinks of drinking at a bar alone: he looks round for some
friend whom he can ask to join him; it is not etiquette to refuse, and
it is expected that the civility will be returned: so that the system
gives the idea of being a mere interchange of compliments; and many men,
in submitting to it, are actuated chiefly by a desire to show a due
amount of courtesy to their friends.
In San Francisco, where the ordinary rate of existence was even faster
than in the Atlantic States, men required an extra amount of stimulant
to keep it up, and this fashion of drinking was carried to excess. The
saloons were crowded from early morning till late at night; and in each,
two or three bar-keepers were kept unceasingly at work, mixing drinks
for expectant groups of customers. They had no time even to sell cigars,
which were most frequently dispensed at a miniature tobacconist’s shop
in another part of the saloon.
Among the proprietors of saloons, or bars, the competition was so great,
that, from having, as is usual, merely a plate of crackers and cheese on
the counter, they go to the length of laying out, for several hours in
the forenoon, and again in the evening, a table covered with a most
sumptuous lunch of soups, cold meats, fish, and so on,--with two or
three waiters to attend to it. This was all free--there was nothing to
pay for it: it was only expected that no one would partake of the good
things without taking a “drink” afterwards.
This sort of thing is common enough in New Orleans; but in a place like
San Francisco, where the plainest dinner any man could eat cost a
dollar, it did seem strange that such goodly fare should be provided
gratuitously for all and sundry. It showed, however, what immense
profits were made at the bars to allow of such an outlay, and gave an
idea of the rivalry which existed even in that line of business.
Another part of the economy of the American bar is an instance of the
confidence placed in the discretion of the public--namely, the mode of
dispensing liquors. When you ask for brandy, the bar-keeper hands you a
tumbler and a decanter of brandy, and you help yourself to as much as
you please: the price is all the same; it does not matter what or how
big a dose one takes: and in the case of cocktails, and such drinks as
the bar-keeper mixes, you tell him to make it as light, or stiff, as you
wish. This is the custom even at the very lowest class of grogshops.
They have a story in the States connected with this, so awfully old that
I am almost ashamed to repeat it. I have heard it told a thousand times,
and always located in the bar of the Astor House in New York; so we may
suppose it to have happened there.
A man came up to the bar, and asking for brandy, was handed a decanter
of brandy accordingly. Filling a tumbler nearly full, he drank it off,
and, laying his shilling on the counter, was walking away, when the
bar-keeper called after him, “Saay, stranger! you’ve forgot your
change--there’s sixpence.” “No,” he said, “I only gave you a shilling;
is not it a shilling a drink?” “Yes,” said the bar-keeper; “selling it
retail we charge a shilling, but a fellow like you taking it wholesale
we only charge sixpence.”
The American bar-keeper is quite an institution of himself. He is a
superior class of man to those engaged in a similar capacity in this
country, and has no counterpart here. In fact, bar-keeping is a
profession, in which individuals rise to eminence, and become celebrated
for their cocktails, and for their address in serving customers. The
rapidity and dexterity with which they mix half-a-dozen different kinds
of drinks all at once is perfectly wonderful; one sees nothing but a
confusion of bottles and tumblers and cascades of fluids as he pours
them from glass to glass at arm’s length for the better amalgamation of
the ingredients; and in the time it would take an ordinary man to pour
out a glass of wine, the mixtures are ready, each prepared as accurately
as an apothecary makes up a prescription.
The bar-keepers in San Francisco exercised their ingenuity in devising
new drinks to suit the popular taste. The most simple and the best that
I know of is a champagne cocktail, which is very easily made by putting
a few drops of bitters in a tumbler and filling it up with champagne.
The immigration of Frenchmen had been so large that some parts of the
city were completely French in appearance; the shops, restaurants, and
estaminets, being painted according to French taste, and exhibiting
French signs, the very letters of which had a French look about them.
The names of some of the restaurants were rather ambitious--as the
Trois Frères, the Café de Paris, and suchlike; but these were second
and third-rate places; those which courted the patronage of the upper
classes of all nations, assumed names more calculated to tickle the
American ear,--such as the Jackson House and the Lafayette. They were
presided over by elegantly dressed _dames du comptoir_, and all the
arrangements were in Parisian style.
The principal American houses were equally good; and there was also an
abundance of places where those who delighted in corn-bread, buckwheat
cakes, pickles, grease, molasses, apple-sauce, and pumpkin pie, could
gratify their taste to the fullest extent.
There was nothing particularly English about any of the eating-houses;
but there were numbers of second-rate English drinking-shops, where John
Bull could smoke his pipe and swig his ale coolly and calmly, without
having to gulp it down and move off to make way for others, as at the
bars of the American saloons.
The Germans too had their lager-beer cellars, but the noise and smoke
which came up from them was enough to deter any one but a German from
venturing in.
There was also a Mexican quarter of the town, where there were
greasy-looking Mexican _fondas_, and crowds of lazy Mexicans lying
about, wrapped up in their blankets, smoking cigaritas.
In another quarter the Chinese most did congregate. Here the majority of
the houses were of Chinese importation, and were stores, stocked with
hams, tea, dried fish, dried ducks, and other very nasty-looking Chinese
eatables, besides copper pots and kettles, fans, shawls, chessmen, and
all sorts of curiosities. Suspended over the doors were brilliantly
colored boards, about the size and shape of a headboard over a grave,
covered with Chinese characters, and with several yards of red ribbon
streaming from them; while the streets were thronged with long-tailed
Celestials, chattering vociferously as they rushed about from store to
store, or standing in groups studying the Chinese bills posted up in the
shop windows, which may have been play-bills,--for there was a Chinese
theatre,--or perhaps advertisements informing the public where the best
rat-pies were to be had. A peculiarly nasty smell pervaded this
locality, and it was generally believed that rats were not so numerous
here as elsewhere.
Owing to the great scarcity of washerwomen, Chinese energy had ample
room to display itself in the washing and ironing business. Throughout
the town might be seen occasionally over some small house a large
American sign, intimating that Ching Sing, Wong Choo, or Ki-chong did
washing and ironing at five dollars a-dozen. Inside these places one
found two or three Chinamen ironing shirts with large flat-bottomed
copper pots full of burning charcoal, and, buried in heaps of dirty
clothes, half-a-dozen more, smoking, and drinking tea.
The Chinese tried to keep pace with the rest of the world. They had
their theatre and their gambling rooms, the latter being small dirty
places, badly lighted with Chinese paper lamps. They played a peculiar
game. The dealer placed on the table several handfuls of small copper
coins, with square holes in them. Bets were made by placing the stake
on one of four divisions, marked in the middle of the table, and the
dealer, drawing the coins away from the heap, four at a time, the bets
were decided according to whether one, two, three, or four remained at
the last. They are great gamblers, and, when their last dollar is gone,
will stake anything they possess: numbers of watches, rings, and such
articles, were always lying in pawn on the table.
The Chinese theatre was a curious pagoda-looking edifice, built by them
expressly for theatrical purposes, and painted, outside and in, in an
extraordinary manner. The performances went on day and night, without
intermission, and consisted principally of juggling and feats of
dexterity. The most exciting part of the exhibition was when one man,
and decidedly a man of some little nerve, made a spread eagle of himself
and stood up against a door, while half-a-dozen others, at a distance of
fifteen or twenty feet, pelted the door with sharp-pointed bowie-knives,
putting a knife into every square inch of the door, but never touching
the man. It was very pleasant to see, from the unflinching way in which
the fellow stood it out, the confidence he placed in the infallibility
of his brethren. They had also short dramatic performances, which were
quite unintelligible to outside barbarians. The only point of interest
about them was the extraordinary gorgeous dresses of the actors; but the
incessant noise they made with gongs and kettle-drums was so discordant
and deafening that a few minutes at a time was as long as any one could
stay in the place.
There were several very good American theatres, a French theatre, and an
Italian opera, besides concerts, masquerades, a circus, and other public
amusements. The most curious were certainly the masquerades. They were
generally given in one of the large gambling saloons, and in the
placards announcing that they were to come off, appeared conspicuously
also the intimation of “No weapons admitted”; “A strong police will be
in attendance.” The company was just such as might be seen in any
gambling room; and, beyond the presence of half-a-dozen masks in female
attire, there was nothing to carry out the idea of a ball or a
masquerade at all; but it was worth while to go, if only to watch the
company arrive, and to see the practical enforcement of the weapon
clause in the announcements. Several doorkeepers were in attendance, to
whom each man as he entered delivered up his knife or his pistol,
receiving a check for it, just as one does for his cane or umbrella at
the door of a picture-gallery. Most men drew a pistol from behind their
back, and very often a knife along with it; some carried their
bowie-knife down the back of their neck, or in their breast; demure,
pious-looking men, in white neckcloths, lifted up the bottom of their
waistcoat, and revealed the butt of a revolver; others, after having
already disgorged a pistol, pulled up the leg of their trousers, and
abstracted a huge bowie-knife from their boot; and there were men,
terrible fellows, no doubt, but who were more likely to frighten
themselves than any one else, who produced a revolver from each
trouser-pocket, and a bowie-knife from their belt. If any man declared
that he had no weapon, the statement was so incredible that he had to
submit to be searched; an operation which was performed by the
doorkeepers, who, I observed, were occasionally rewarded for their
diligence by the discovery of a pistol secreted in some unusual part of
the dress.
Some of the shops were very magnificently got up, and would not have
been amiss in Regent Street. The watchmakers’ and jewelers’ shops
especially were very numerous, and made a great display of immense gold
watches, enormous gold rings and chains, with gold-headed canes, and
diamond pins and brooches of a most formidable size. With numbers of men
who found themselves possessed of an amount of money which they had
never before dreamed of, and which they had no idea what to do with, the
purchase of gold watches and diamond pins was a very favorite mode of
getting rid of their spare cash. Laboring men fastened their coarse
dirty shirts with a cluster of diamonds the size of a shilling, wore
colossal gold rings on their fingers, and displayed a massive gold chain
and seals from their watch-pocket; while hardly a man of any consequence
returned to the Atlantic States without receiving from some one of his
friends a huge gold-headed cane, with all his virtues and good qualities
engraved upon it.
A large business was also done in Chinese shawls, and various Chinese
curiosities. It was greatly the fashion for men, returning home, to take
with them a quantity of such articles, as presents for their friends. In
fact, a gorgeous Chinese shawl seemed to be as necessary for the
returning Californian as a revolver and bowie-knife for the California
emigrant. There was one large bazaar in particular where was exhibited
such a stock of the costliest shawls, cabinets, workboxes, vases, and
other articles of Chinese manufacture, with clocks, bronzes, and all
sorts of drawing-room ornaments, that one would have thought it an
establishment which could only be supported in a city like London or
Paris.
Some of the streets in the upper part of the city presented a very
singular appearance. The houses had been built before the grade of the
different streets had been fixed by the corporation, and there were
places where the streets, having been cut down through the hills to
their proper level, were nothing more than wide trenches, with a
perpendicular bank on either side, perhaps forty or fifty feet high, and
on the brink of these stood the houses, to which access was gained by
ladders and temporary wooden stairs, the unfortunate proprietor being
obliged to go to the expense of grading his own lot, and so bringing
himself down to a level with the rest of the world. In other places,
where the street crossed a deep hollow, it formed a high embankment,
with a row of houses at the foot of it, some nearly buried, and others
already raised to the level of the street, resting on a sort of
scaffolding, while the foundation was being filled in under them.
The soil was so sandy that the hills were easily cut down, and for this
purpose a contrivance was used called a Steam Paddy, which did immense
execution. It was worked by steam, and was somewhat on the principle of
a dredging-machine, but with only one large bucket, which cut down about
two tons of earth at a time and emptied itself into a truck placed
alongside. From the spot where the Paddy was thus walking into the hills
a railway was laid, extending to the shore, and trains of cars were
continually rattling down across the streets, taking the earth to fill
up those parts of the city which were as yet under water.
Two or three years later, in ’54, when an alteration was made in the
grade of some of the streets, large brick and stone houses were raised
several feet, by means of a most ingenious application of hydraulic
pressure. Excavations were made, and under the foundation-walls of the
houses were inserted a number of cylinders about two feet in height, so
that the building rested entirely on the heads of the pistons. The
cylinders were all connected by pipes with a force-pump, worked by a
couple of men, who in this way could pump up a five-story brick building
three or four inches in the course of the day. As the house grew up,
props were inserted in case of accidents; and when it had been raised as
far as the length of the pistons would allow, the whole apparatus was
readjusted, and the operation was repeated till the required height was
obtained. I went to witness the process when it was being applied to a
large corner brick building, five stories high, with about sixty feet
frontage each way. The flagged sidewalk was being raised along with it;
but there was no interruption of the business going on in the premises,
or anything whatever to indicate to the passer-by that the ground was
growing under his feet. On going down under the house, one saw that the
building was detached from the surrounding ground, and rested on a
number of cylinders; but the only appearance of work being done was by
two men quietly working a pump amid a ramification of small iron pipes.
The apparatus had of course to be of an immense strength to withstand
the pressure to which it was subjected, and the utmost nicety was
required in its adjustment, to avoid straining and cracking the walls;
but numbers of large buildings were raised most successfully in this way
without receiving the slightest injury.
The hackney carriages of San Francisco were infinitely superior to those
of any other city in the world. One might have supposed that any old cab
which would hold together would have been good enough for such a place;
but, on the contrary, the cabs--if cabs they could be called--were large
handsome carriages, lined with silk, and brightly painted and polished,
drawn by pairs of magnificent horses, in harness, which, like the
carriages, was loaded with silver. They would have passed anywhere for
showy private equipages, had the drivers only been in livery, instead of
being fashionably dressed individuals in kid gloves. A London cabby
would have stared in astonishment at an apparition of a stand of such
cabs, and also at the fares which were charged. One could not cross the
street in them under five dollars. The scale of cab-fares, however, was
not out of proportion to the extravagance of other ordinary expenses.
The drivers probably received two or three hundred dollars a month
(about £700 a year), and the horses alone were worth from a thousand to
fifteen hundred dollars each.
None of the private carriages came at all near the hacks in splendor.
They were mostly of the American “buggy” character, and were drawn by
fast-trotting horses. The Americans have a style and taste in driving
peculiarly their own; they study neither grace nor comfort in their
attitudes; speed is the only source of pleasure; and a “three-minute
horse”--that is to say, one which trots his mile in three minutes--is
the only horse worth driving; while anything slower than a “two-forty
(2_m._ 40_s._) horse” is not considered really fast.
A great many very fine horses had been imported from Sydney, but these
were chiefly used in drays and under the saddle. The buggy horses were
all American, and had made the journey across the plains. The native
Californian horses are small, with great powers of endurance, but are
generally not very tractable in harness.
On the arrival of the fortnightly steamer from Panama with the mails
from the Atlantic States and from Europe, the distribution of letters at
the post-office occasioned a very singular scene. In the United States
the system of delivering letters by postmen is not carried to the same
extent as in this country. In San Francisco no such thing existed as a
postman; every one had to call at the post-office for his letters. The
mail usually consisted of several wagon-loads of letter-bags; and on its
being received, notice was given at the post-office at what hour the
delivery would commence, a whole day being frequently required to sort
the letters, which were then delivered from a row of half-a-dozen
windows, lettered A to E, F to K, and so on through the alphabet.
Independently of the immense mercantile correspondence, of course every
man in the city was anxiously expecting letters from home; and for hours
before the appointed time for opening the windows, a dense crowd of
people collected, almost blocking up the two streets which gave access
to the post-office, and having the appearance at a distance of being a
mob; but on coming up to it, one would find that, though closely packed
together, the people were all in six strings, twisted up and down in all
directions, the commencement of them being the lucky individuals who had
been first on the ground, and taken up their position at their
respective windows, while each new-comer had to fall in behind those
already waiting. Notwithstanding the value of time, and the impatience
felt by every individual, the most perfect order prevailed: there was no
such thing as a man attempting to push himself in ahead of those already
waiting, nor was there the slightest respect of persons; every new-comer
quietly took his position, and had to make the best of it, with the
prospect of waiting for hours before he could hope to reach the window.
Smoking and chewing tobacco were great aids in passing the time, and
many came provided with books and newspapers, which they could read in
perfect tranquillity, as there was no unnecessary crowding or jostling.
The principle of “first come first served” was strictly adhered to, and
any attempt to infringe the established rule would have been promptly
put down by the omnipotent majority.
A man’s place in the line was his individual property, more or less
valuable according to his distance from the window, and, like any other
piece of property, it was bought and sold, and converted into cash.
Those who had plenty of dollars to spare, but could not afford much
time, could buy out some one who had already spent several hours in
keeping his place. Ten or fifteen dollars were frequently paid for a
good position, and some men went there early, and waited patiently,
without any expectation of getting letters, but for the chance of
turning their acquired advantage into cash.
The post-office clerks got through their work briskly enough when once
they commenced the delivery, the alphabetical system of arrangement
enabling them to produce the letters immediately on the name being
given. One was not kept long in suspense, and many a poor fellow’s face
lengthened out into a doleful expression of disbelief and
disappointment, as, scarcely had he uttered his name, when he was
promptly told there was nothing for him. This was a sentence from which
there was no appeal, however incredulous one might be; and every man was
incredulous; for during the hour or two he had been waiting, he had
become firmly convinced in his own mind that there must be a letter for
him; and it was no satisfaction at all to see the clerk, surrounded as
he was by thousands of letters, take only a packet of a dozen or so in
which to look for it: one would like to have had the post-office
searched all over, and if without success, would still have thought
there was something wrong. I was myself upon one occasion deeply
impressed with this spirit of unbelief in the infallibility of the
post-office oracle, and tried the effect of another application the next
day, when my perseverance was crowned with success.
There was one window devoted exclusively to the use of foreigners, among
whom English were not included; and here a polyglot individual, who
would have been a useful member of society of the Tower of Babel,
answered the demands of all European nations, and held communication
with Chinamen, Sandwich Islanders, and all the stray specimens of
humanity from unknown parts of the earth.
One reason why men went to little trouble or expense in making
themselves comfortable in their homes, if homes they could be called,
was the constant danger of fire.
The city was a mass of wooden and canvas buildings, the very look of
which suggested the idea of a conflagration. A room was a mere
partitioned-off place, the walls of which were sometimes only of canvas,
though generally of boards, loosely put together, and covered with any
sort of material which happened to be most convenient--cotton cloth,
printed calico, or drugget, frequently papered, as if to render it more
inflammable. Floors and walls were by no means so exclusive as one is
accustomed to think them; they were not transparent certainly, but
otherwise they insured little privacy: a general conversation could be
very easily carried on by all the dwellers in a house, while, at the
same time, each of them was enjoying the seclusion, such as it was, of
his own apartment. A young lady, who was boarding at one of the hotels,
very feelingly remarked that it was a most disagreeable place to live
in, because, if any gentleman was to pop the question to her, the report
would be audible in every part of the house, and all the other inmates
would be waiting to hear the answer she might give.
The cry of fire is dreadful enough anywhere, but to any one who lived in
San Francisco in those days it must ever be more exciting and more
suggestive of disaster and destruction of property than it can be to
those who have been all their lives surrounded by brick and stone, and
insurance companies.
In other countries, when a fire occurs and a large amount of property is
destroyed, the loss falls on a company--a body without a soul, having no
individual identity, and for which no one, save perhaps a few of the
shareholders, has the slightest sympathy. The loss, being sustained by
an unknown quantity, as it were, is not appreciated; but in San
Francisco no such institution as insurance against fire as yet existed.
To insure a house there would have been as great a risk as to insure a
New York steamer two or three weeks overdue. By degrees, brick buildings
were superseding those of wood and pasteboard; but still, for the whole
city, destruction by fire, sooner or later, was the dreaded and
fully-expected doom. When such a combustible town once ignited in any
one spot, the flames, of course, spread so rapidly that every part,
however distant, stood nearly an equal chance of being consumed. The
alarm of fire acted like the touch of a magician’s wand. The vitality of
the whole city was in an instant arrested and turned from its course.
Theatres, saloons, and all public places, were emptied as quickly as if
the buildings themselves were on fire; the business of the moment,
whatever it was, was at once abandoned, and the streets became filled
with people rushing frantically in every direction--not all towards the
fire by any means; few thought it worth while to ask even where it was.
To know there was fire somewhere was quite sufficient, and they made at
once for their house or their store, or wherever they had any property
that might be saved; while, as soon as the alarm was given, the engines
were heard thundering along the streets, amid the ringing of the
fire-bells and the shouts of the excited crowd.
The fire-companies, of which several were already organized, were on the
usual American system--volunteer companies of citizens, who receive no
pay, but are exempt from serving on juries and from some other citizens’
duties. They have crack fire-companies just as we have crack regiments,
and of these the fast young men of the upper classes are frequently the
most enthusiastic members. Each company has its own officers; but they
are all under control of a “chief engineer;” who is appointed by the
city, and who directs the general plan of operations at a fire. There is
great rivalry among the different companies, who vie with each other in
making their turn-out as handsome as possible. They each have their own
uniform, but the nature of their duties does not admit of much finery in
their dress; red shirts and helmets are the principal features in it.
Their engines, however, are got up in very magnificent style, being most
elaborately painted, all the iron-work shining like polished steel, and
heavily mounted with brass or silver. They are never drawn by horses,
but by the firemen themselves. A long double coil of rope is attached to
the engine, and is paid out as the crowd increases, till the engine
appears to be tearing and bumping along in pursuit of a long narrow mob
of men, who run as if the very devil himself were after them.
Their _esprit de corps_ is very strong, and connected with the different
engine-houses are reading-rooms, saloons, and so on, for the use of the
members of the company, many of these places being in the same style of
luxurious magnificence as the most fashionable hotels. On holidays, and
on every possible occasion which offers an excuse for so doing, the
whole fire brigade parade the streets in full dress, each company
dragging their engine after them, decked out in flags and flowers, which
are presented to them by their lady-admirers, in return for the balls
given by the firemen for their entertainment. They also have fielddays,
when they all turn out, and in some open part of the city have a trial
of strength, seeing which can throw a stream of water to the greatest
height, or which can flood the other, by pumping water into each other’s
engines.
As firemen they are most prompt and efficient, performing their perilous
duties with the greatest zeal and intrepidity--as might indeed be
expected of men who undertake such a service for no hope of reward, but
for their own love of the danger and excitement attending upon it,
actuated, at the same time, by a chivalrous desire to save either life
or property, in trying to accomplish which they gallantly risk, and
frequently lose, their own lives. This feeling is kept alive by the
readiness with which the public pay honor to any individual who
conspicuously distinguishes himself--generally by presenting him with a
gold or silver speaking-trumpet (that article being in the States as
much the badge of office of a captain of a fire-company as with us of a
captain of a man-of-war), while any fireman who is killed in discharge
of his duties is buried with all pomp and ceremony by the whole
fire-brigade.
Two miles above San Francisco, on the shore of the bay, is the Mission
Dolores, one of those which were established in different parts of the
country by the Spaniards. It was a very small village of a few adobe
houses and a church, adjoining which stood a large building, the abode
of the priests. The land in the neighborhood is flat and fertile, and
was being rapidly converted into market-gardens; but the village itself
was as yet but little changed. It had a look of antiquity and
completeness, as if it had been finished long ago, and as if nothing
more was ever likely to be done with it. As is the case with all
Spanish-American towns, the very style of the architecture communicated
an oppressive feeling of stillness, and its gloomy solitude was only
relieved by a few listless unoccupied-looking Mexicans and native
Californians.
The contrast to San Francisco was so great that on coming out here one
could almost think that the noisy city he had left but half an hour
before had existence only in his imagination; for San Francisco
presented a picture of universal human nature boiling over, while here
was nothing but human stagnation--a more violent extreme than would have
been the wilderness as yet untrodden by man. Being but a slightly
reduced counterpart of what San Francisco was a year or two before, it
offered a good point of view from which to contemplate the miraculous
growth of that city, still not only increasing in extent but improving
in beauty and in excellence in all its parts, and progressing so rapidly
that, almost from day to day, one could mark its steady advancement in
everything which denotes the presence of a wealthy and prosperous
community.
The “Mission,” however, was not suffered to remain long in a state of
torpor. A plank road was built to it from San Francisco. Numbers of
villas sprang up around it,--and good hotels, a race-course, and other
attractions soon made it the favorite resort for all who sought an
hour’s relief from the excitement of the city.
At the very head of the bay, some sixty miles from San Francisco, is the
town of San José, situated in an extensive and most fertile valley,
which was all being brought under cultivation, and where some farmers
had already made large fortunes by their onions and potatoes, for the
growth of which the soil is peculiarly adapted. San José was the
headquarters of the native Californians, many of whom were wealthy men,
at least in so far as they owned immense estates and thousands of wild
cattle. They did not “hold their own,” however, with the more
enterprising people who were now effecting such a complete revolution in
the country. Their property became a thousandfold more valuable, and
they had every chance to benefit by the new order of things; but men who
had passed their lives in that sparsely populated and secluded part of
the world, directing a few half-savage Indians in herding wild cattle,
were not exactly calculated to foresee, or to speculate upon, the
effects of an overwhelming influx of men so different in all respects
from themselves; and even when occasions of enriching themselves were
forced upon them, they were ignorant of their own advantages, and were
inferior in smartness to the men with whom they had to deal. Still,
although too slow to keep up with the pace at which the country was now
going ahead, many of them were, nevertheless, men of considerable
sagacity, and appeared to no disadvantage as members of the
legislature, to which they were returned from parts of the State remote
from the mines, and where as yet there were few American settlers.
San José was quite out of the way of gold-hunters, and there was
consequently about the place a good deal of the California of other
days. It was at that time, however, the seat of government; and,
consequently, a large number of Americans were here assembled, and gave
some life to the town, which had also been improved by the addition of
several new streets of more modern-looking houses than the old mud and
tile concerns of the native Californians.
Small steamers plied to within a mile or two of the town from San
Francisco, and there were also four-horse coaches which did the sixty
miles in about five hours. The drive down the valley of the San José is
in some parts very beautiful. The country is smooth and open--not so
flat as to appear monotonous--and is sufficiently wooded with fine oaks;
but towards San Francisco it becomes more hilly and bleak. The soil is
sandy; indeed, excepting a few spots here and there, it is nothing but
sand, and there is hardly a tree ten feet high within as many miles of
the city.