SAN FRANCISCO--APPEARANCE OF THE HOUSES--GROWTH OF THE CITY--THE
PLAZA--SHIPS IN THE
STREETS--LIVING--BOOT-BLACKS--RESTAURANTS--HOTELS.
The entrance to San Francisco harbour is between precipitous rocky
headlands about a mile apart, and which have received the name of the
Golden Gates. The harbour itself is a large sheet of water, twelve miles
across at its widest point, and in length forty or fifty miles, getting
gradually narrower till at last it becomes a mere creek.
On the north side of the harbour falls in the Sacramento, a large river,
to which all the other rivers of California are tributary, and which is
navigable for large vessels as far as Sacramento city, a distance of
nearly two hundred miles.
The city of San Francisco lies on the south shore, nearly opposite the
mouth of the Sacramento, and four or five miles from the ocean. It is
built on a semicircular inlet, about two miles across, at the foot of a
succession of bleak sandy hills, covered here and there with scrubby
brushwood. Before the discovery of gold in the country, it consisted
merely of a few small houses occupied by native Californians, and one or
two foreign merchants engaged in the export of hides and horns. The
harbour was also a favourite watering-place for whalers and men-of-war,
cruising in that part of the world.
At the time of our arrival in 1851, hardly a vestige remained of the
original village. Everything bore evidence of newness, and the greater
part of the city presented a makeshift and temporary appearance, being
composed of the most motley collection of edifices, in the way of
houses, which can well be conceived. Some were mere tents, with perhaps
a wooden front sufficiently strong to support the sign of the occupant;
some were composed of sheets of zinc on a wooden framework; there were
numbers of corrugated iron houses, the most unsightly things possible,
and generally painted brown; there were many imported American houses,
all, of course, painted white, with green shutters; also dingy-looking
Chinese houses, and occasionally some substantial brick buildings; but
the great majority were nondescript, shapeless, patchwork concerns, in
the fabrication of which, sheet-iron, wood, zinc, and canvass, seemed to
have been employed indiscriminately; while here and there, in the middle
of a row of such houses, appeared the hulk of a ship, which had been
hauled up, and now served as a warehouse, the cabins being fitted up as
offices, or sometimes converted into a boarding-house.
The hills rose so abruptly from the shore that there was not room for
the rapid extension of the city, and as sites were more valuable, as
they were nearer the shipping, the first growth of the city was out into
the bay. Already houses had been built out on piles for nearly
half-a-mile beyond the original high-water mark; and it was thus that
ships, having been hauled up and built in, came to occupy a position so
completely out of their element. The hills are of a very loose sandy
soil, and were consequently easily graded sufficiently to admit of being
built upon; and what was removed from the hills was used to fill up the
space gained from the bay. This has been done to such an extent, that at
the present day the whole of the business part of the city of San
Francisco stands on solid ground, where a few years ago large ships lay
at anchor; and what was then high-water mark is now more than a mile
inland.
The principal street of the town was about three-quarters of a mile
long, and in it were most of the bankers’ offices, the principal stores,
some of the best restaurants, and numerous drinking and gambling
saloons.
In the Plaza, a large open square, was the only remaining house of the
San Francisco of other days--a small cottage built of sun-dried bricks.
Two sides of the Plaza were composed of the most imposing-looking houses
in the city, some of which were of brick several stories high; others,
though of wood, were large buildings with handsome fronts in imitation
of stone, and nearly every one of them was a gambling-house.
Scattered over the hills overhanging the town, apparently at random, but
all on specified lots, on streets which as yet were only defined by rude
fences, were habitations of various descriptions, handsome wooden houses
of three or four storeys, neat little cottages, iron houses, and tents
innumerable.
Rents were exorbitantly high, and servants were hardly to be had for
money; housekeeping was consequently only undertaken by those who did
not fear the expense, and who were so fortunate as to have their
families with them. The population, however, consisted chiefly of single
men, and the usual style of living was to have some sort of room to
sleep in, and to board at a restaurant. But even a room to oneself was
an expensive luxury, and it was more usual for men to sleep in their
stores or offices. As for a bed, no one was particular about that; a
shakedown on a table, or on the floor, was as common as anything else,
and sheets were a luxury but little thought of. Every man was his own
servant, and his own porter besides. It was nothing unusual to see a
respectable old gentleman, perhaps some old paterfamilias, who at home
would have been horrified at the idea of doing such a thing, open his
store in the morning himself, take a broom and sweep it out, and then
proceed to blacken his boots.
The boot-blacking trade, however, was one which sprung up and flourished
rapidly. It was monopolised by Frenchmen, and was principally conducted
in the Plaza, on the long row of steps in front of the gambling saloons.
At first the accommodation afforded was not very great. One had to stand
upon one foot and place the other on a little box, while a Frenchman,
standing a few steps below, operated upon it. Presently arm-chairs were
introduced, and, the boot-blacks working in partnership, time was
economised by both boots being polished simultaneously. It was a curious
sight to see thirty or forty men sitting in a row in the most public
part of the city having their boots blacked, while as many more stood
waiting for their turn. The next improvement was being accommodated with
the morning papers while undergoing the operation; and finally, the
boot-blacking fraternity, keeping pace with the progressive spirit of
the age, opened saloons furnished with rows of easy-chairs on a raised
platform, in which the patients sat and read the news, or admired
themselves in the mirror on the opposite wall. The regular charge for
having one’s boots polished was twenty-five cents, an English
shilling--the smallest sum worth mentioning in California.
In 1851, however, things had not attained such a pitch of refinement as
to render the appearance of a man’s boots a matter of the slightest
consequence.
As far as mere eating and drinking went, living was good enough. The
market was well supplied with every description of game--venison, elk,
antelope, grizzly bear, and an infinite variety of wildfowl. The
harbour abounded with fish, and the Sacramento river was full of
splendid salmon, equal in flavour to those of the Scottish rivers,
though in appearance not quite such a highly-finished fish, being rather
clumsy about the tail.
Vegetables were not so plentiful. Potatoes and onions, as fine as any in
the world, were the great stand-by. Other vegetables, though scarce,
were produced in equal perfection, and upon a gigantic scale. A beetroot
weighing a hundred pounds, and that looked like the trunk of a tree, was
not thought a _very_ remarkable specimen.
The wild geese and ducks were extremely numerous all round the shores of
the bay, and many men, chiefly English and French, who would have
scorned the idea of selling their game at home, here turned their
sporting abilities to good account, and made their guns a source of
handsome profit. A Frenchman with whom I was acquainted killed fifteen
hundred dollars’ worth of game in two weeks.
There were two or three French restaurants nearly equal to some of the
best in Paris, where the cheapest dinner one could get cost three
dollars; but there were also numbers of excellent French and American
houses, at which one could live much more reasonably. Good hotels were
not wanting, but they were ridiculously extravagant places; and though
flimsy concerns, built of wood, and not presenting very ostentatious
exteriors, they were fitted up with all the lavish display which
characterises the fashionable hotels of New York. In fact, all places
of public resort were furnished and decorated in a style of most
barbaric splendour, being filled with the costliest French furniture,
and a profusion of immense mirrors, gorgeous gilding, magnificent
chandeliers, and gold and china ornaments, conveying an idea of
luxurious refinement which contrasted strangely with the appearance and
occupations of the people by whom they were frequented.
San Francisco exhibited an immense amount of vitality compressed into a
small compass, and a degree of earnestness was observable in every
action of a man’s daily life. People lived more there in a week than
they would in a year in most other places.
In the course of a month, or a year, in San Francisco, there was more
hard work done, more speculative schemes were conceived and executed,
more money was made and lost, there was more buying and selling, more
sudden changes of fortune, more eating and drinking, more smoking,
swearing, gambling, and tobacco-chewing, more crime and profligacy, and,
at the same time, more solid advancement made by the people, as a body,
in wealth, prosperity, and the refinements of civilisation, than could
be shown in an equal space of time by any community of the same size on
the face of the earth.
The every-day jog-trot of ordinary human existence was not a fast enough
pace for Californians in their impetuous pursuit of wealth. The longest
period of time ever thought of was a month. Money was loaned, and houses
were rented, by the month; interest and rent being invariably payable
monthly and in advance. All engagements were made by the month, during
which period the changes and contingencies were so great that no one was
willing to commit himself for a longer term. In the space of a month the
whole city might be swept off by fire, and a totally new one might be
flourishing in its place. So great was the constant fluctuation in the
prices of goods, and so rash and speculative was the usual style of
business, that no great idea of stability could be attached to anything,
and the ever-varying aspect of the streets, as the houses were being
constantly pulled down and rebuilt, was emblematic of the equally
varying fortunes of the inhabitants.
The streets presented a scene of intense bustle and excitement. The
side-walks were blocked up with piles of goods, in front of the already
crowded stores; men hurried along with the air of having the weight of
all the business of California on their shoulders; others stood in
groups at the corners of the streets; here and there was a drunken man
lying grovelling in the mud, enjoying himself as uninterruptedly as if
he were merely a hog; old miners, probably on their way home, were
loafing about, staring at everything, in all the glory of mining
costume, jealous of every inch of their long hair and flowing beards,
and of every bit of California mud which adhered to their ragged old
shirts and patchwork pantaloons, as evidences that they, at least, had
“seen the elephant.”
Troops of newly arrived Frenchmen marched along, _en route_ for the
mines, staggering under their equipment of knapsacks, shovels, picks,
tin wash-bowls, pistols, knives, swords, and double-barrel guns--their
blankets slung over their shoulders, and their persons hung around with
tin cups, frying-pans, coffee-pots, and other culinary utensils, with
perhaps a hatchet and a spare pair of boots. Crowds of Chinamen were
also to be seen, bound for the diggings, under gigantic basket-hats,
each man with a bamboo laid across his shoulder, from both ends of which
were suspended a higgledy-piggledy collection of mining tools, Chinese
baskets and boxes, immense boots, and a variety of Chinese “fixins,”
which no one but a Chinaman could tell the use of,--all speaking at
once, gabbling and chattering their horrid jargon, and producing a noise
like that of a flock of geese. There were continuous streams of drays
drawn by splendid horses, and loaded with merchandise from all parts of
the world, and horsemen galloped about, equally regardless of their own
and of other men’s lives.
Two or three auctioneers might be heard at once, “crying” their goods
with characteristic California vehemence, while some of their neighbours
in the same line of business were ringing bells to collect an
audience--and at the same time one’s ears were dinned with the discord
of half-a-dozen brass bands, braying out different popular airs from as
many different gambling saloons. In the midst of it all, the runners,
or tooters, for the opposition river-steamboats, would be cracking up
the superiority of their respective boats at the top of their lungs,
somewhat in this style: “One dollar to-night for Sacramento, by the
splendid steamer Senator, the fastest boat that ever turned a wheel from
Long wharf--with feather pillows and curled-hair mattresses, mahogany
doors and silver hinges. She has got eight young-lady passengers
to-night, that speak all the dead languages, and not a coloured man from
stem to stern of her.” Here an opposition runner would let out upon him,
and the two would slang each other in the choicest California
Billingsgate for the amusement of the admiring crowd.
Standing at the door of a gambling saloon, with one foot raised on the
steps, would be a well-dressed young man, playing thimblerig on his leg
with a golden pea, for the edification of a crowd of gaping greenhorns,
some one of whom would be sure to bite. Not far off would be found a
precocious little blackguard of fourteen or fifteen, standing behind a
cask, and playing on the head of it a sort of thimblerig game with three
cards, called “French monte.” He first shows their faces, and names
one--say the ace of spades--as the winning card, and after
thimblerigging them on the head of the cask, he lays them in a row with
their faces down, and goes on proclaiming to the public in a loud voice
that the ace of spades is the winning card, and that he’ll “bet any man
one or two hundred dollars he can’t pick up the ace of spades.”
Occasionally some man, after watching the trick for a little, thinks it
the easiest thing possible to tell which is the ace of spades, and loses
his hundred dollars accordingly, when the youngster pockets the money
and his cards, and moves off to another location, not being so soft as
to repeat the joke too often, or to take a smaller bet than a hundred
dollars.
There were also newsboys with their shrill voices, crying their various
papers with the latest intelligence from all parts of the world, and
boys with boxes of cigars, offering “the best Havannah cigars for a bit
a-piece, as good as you can get in the stores for a quarter.” A “bit” is
twelve and a half cents, or an English sixpence, and for all one could
buy with it, was but little less useless than an English farthing.
Presently one would hear “Hullo! there’s a muss!” (_Anglicé_, a row),
and men would be seen rushing to the spot from all quarters.
Auction-rooms, gambling-rooms, stores, and drinking-shops would be
emptied, and a mob collected in the street in a moment. The “muss” would
probably be only a _difficulty_ between two gentlemen, who had referred
it to the arbitration of knives or pistols; but if no one was killed,
the mob would disperse, to resume their various occupations, just as
quickly as they had collected.
Some of the principal streets were planked, as was also, of course, that
part of the city which was built on piles; but where there was no
planking, the mud was ankle-deep, and in many places there were
mudholes, rendering the street almost impassable. The streets were the
general receptacle for every description of rubbish. They were chiefly
covered with bits of broken boxes and casks, fragments of hampers, iron
hoops, old tin cases, and empty bottles. In the vicinity of the numerous
Jew slop-shops, they were thickly strewed with old boots, hats, coats,
and pantaloons; for the majority of the population carried their
wardrobe on their backs, and when they bought a new article of dress,
the old one which it was to replace was pitched into the street.
I often wondered that none of the enterprising “old clo” fraternity ever
opened a business in California. They might have got shiploads of old
clothes for the trouble of picking them up. Some of them, doubtless,
were not worth the trouble, but there were always tons of cast-off
garments kicking about the streets, which I think an “old clo” of any
ingenuity could have rendered available. California was often said to be
famous for three things--rats, fleas, and empty bottles; but old clothes
might well have been added to the list.
The whole place swarmed with rats of an enormous size; one could hardly
walk at night without treading on them. They destroyed an immense deal
of property, and a good ratting terrier was worth his weight in gold
dust. I knew instances, however, of first-rate terriers in Sacramento
City (which for rats beat San Francisco hollow) becoming at last so
utterly disgusted with killing rats, that they ceased to consider it
any sport at all, and allowed the rats to run under their noses without
deigning to look at them.
As for the other industrious little animals, they were a terrible
nuisance. I suppose they were indigenous to the sandy soil. It was quite
a common thing to see a gentleman suddenly pull up the sleeve of his
coat, or the leg of his trousers, and smile in triumph when he caught
his little tormentor. After a few weeks’ residence in San Francisco, one
became naturally very expert at this sort of thing.
Of the last article--the empty bottles--the enormous heaps of them,
piled up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, suggested a consumption
of liquor which was truly awful. Empty bottles were as plentiful as
bricks--and a large city might have been built with them.
The appearance of the people, being, as they were, a sort of world’s
show of humanity, was extremely curious and diversified. There were
Chinamen in all the splendour of sky-blue or purple figured silk
jackets, and tight yellow satin continuations, black satin shoes with
thick white soles, and white gaiters; a fan in their hand, and a
beautifully plaited glossy pigtail hanging down to their heels from
under a scarlet scull-cap, with a gold knob on the top of it. These were
the swell Chinamen; the lower orders of Celestials were generally
dressed in immensely wide blue calico jackets and bags, for they really
could not be called trousers, and on their heads they wore an enormous
wicker-work extinguisher, which would have made a very good family
clothes-basket.
The Mexicans were very numerous, and wore their national costume--the
bright-coloured serape thrown gracefully over the left shoulder, with
rows of silver buttons down the outside of their trousers, which were
generally left open, so as to show the loose white drawers underneath,
and the silver-handled bowie-knife in the stamped leather leggins.
Englishmen seemed to adhere to the shooting-coat style of dress, and the
down-east Yankees to their eternal black dress-coat, black pantaloons,
and black satin waistcoat; while New Yorkers, southerners, and
Frenchmen, came out in the latest Paris fashions.
Those who did not stick to their former style of dress, indulged in all
the extravagant license of California costume, which was of every
variety that caprice could suggest. No man could make his appearance
sufficiently _bizarre_ to attract any attention. The prevailing fashion
among the rag-tag and bobtail was a red or blue flannel shirt,
wide-awake hats of every conceivable shape and colour, and trousers
stuffed into a big pair of boots.
Pistols and knives were usually worn in the belt at the back, and to be
without either was the exception to the rule.
The few ladies who were already in San Francisco, very naturally avoided
appearing in public; but numbers of female toilettes, of the most
extravagantly rich and gorgeous materials, swept the muddy streets, and
added not a little to the incongruous variety of the scene.
To a cursory visitor, auction-sales and gambling would have appeared two
of the principal features of the city.
The gambling saloons were very numerous, occupying the most prominent
positions in the leading thoroughfares, and all of them presenting a
more conspicuous appearance than the generality of houses around them.
They were thronged day and night, and in each was a very good band of
music, the performers being usually German or French.
On entering a first-class gambling room, one found a large
well-proportioned saloon sixty or seventy feet long, brilliantly lighted
up by several very fine chandeliers, the walls decorated with ornamental
painting and gilding, and hung with large mirrors and showy pictures,
while in an elevated projecting orchestra half-a-dozen Germans were
playing operatic music. There were a dozen or more tables in the room,
each with a compact crowd of eager betters around it, and the whole room
was so filled with men that elbowing one’s way between the tables was a
matter of difficulty. The atmosphere was quite hazy with the quantity of
tobacco smoke, and was strongly impregnated with the fumes of brandy. If
one happened to enter while the musicians were taking a rest, the quiet
and stillness were remarkable. Nothing was heard but a slight hum of
voices, and the constant chinking of money; for it was the fashion,
while standing betting at a table, to have a lot of dollars in one’s
hands, and to keep shuffling them backwards and forwards like so many
cards.
The people composing the crowd were men of every class, from the highest
to the lowest, and, though the same as might be seen elsewhere, their
extraordinary variety of character and of dress appeared still more
curious from their being brought into such close juxtaposition, and
apparently placed upon an equality. Seated round the same table might be
seen well-dressed respectable-looking men, and, alongside of them, rough
miners fresh from the diggings, with well-filled buckskin purses, dirty
old flannel shirts, and shapeless hats; jolly tars half-seas over, not
understanding anything about the game, nor apparently taking any
interest in it, but having their spree out at the gaming-table because
it was the fashion, and good-humouredly losing their pile of five or six
hundred or a thousand dollars; Mexicans wrapped up in their blankets
smoking cigaritas, and watching the game intently from under their
broad-brimmed hats; Frenchmen in their blouses smoking black pipes; and
little urchins, or little old scamps rather, ten or twelve years of age,
smoking cigars as big as themselves, with the air of men who were quite
up to all the hooks and crooks of this wicked world (as indeed they
were), and losing their hundred dollars at a pop with all the
_nonchalance_ of an old gambler; while crowds of men, some dressed like
gentlemen, and mixed with all sorts of nondescript ragamuffins, crowded
round, and stretched over those seated at the tables, in order to make
their bets.
There were dirty, squalid, villanous-looking scoundrels, who never
looked straight out of their eyes, but still were always looking at
something, as if they were “making a note of it,” and who could have
made their faces their fortunes in some parts of the world, by “sitting”
for murderers, or ruffians generally.
Occasionally one saw, jostled about unresistingly by the crowd, and as
if the crowd ignored its existence, the live carcass of some wretched,
dazed, woebegone man, clad in the worn-out greasy habiliments of quondam
gentility; the glassy unintelligent eye looking as if no focus could be
found for it, but as if it saw a dim misty vision of everything all at
once; the only meaning in the face being about the lips, where still
lingered the smack of grateful enjoyment of the last mouthful of whisky,
blended with a longing humble sigh for the speedy recurrence of any
opportunity of again experiencing such an awakening bliss, and forcibly
expressing an unquenchable thirst for strong drinks, together with the
total absence of all power to do anything towards relieving it, while
the whole appearance of the man spoke of bitter disappointment and
reverses, without the force to bear up under them. He was the picture of
sottish despair, and the name of his duplicates was legion.
There was in the crowd a large proportion of sleek well-shaven men, in
stove-pipe hats and broadcloth; but, however nearly a man might approach
in appearance to the conventional idea of a gentleman, it is not to be
supposed, on that account, that he either was, or got the credit of
being, a bit better than his neighbours. The man standing next him, in
the guise of a labouring man, was perhaps his superior in wealth,
character, and education. Appearances, at least as far as dress was
concerned, went for nothing at all. A man was judged by the amount of
money in his purse, and frequently the man to be most courted for his
dollars was the most to be despised for his looks.
One element of mixed crowds of people, in the States and in this
country, was very poorly represented. There were scarcely any of the
lower order of Irish; the cost of emigration to California was at that
time too great for the majority of that class, although now the Irish
population of San Francisco is nearly equal in proportion to that in the
large cities of the Union.
The Spanish game of _monte_, which was introduced into California by the
crowds of Mexicans who came there, was at this time the most popular
game, and was dealt almost exclusively by Mexicans. It is played on a
table about six feet by four, on each side of which sits a dealer, and
between them is the bank of gold and silver coin, to the amount of five
or ten thousand dollars, piled up in rows covering a space of a couple
of square feet. The game is played with Spanish cards, which are
differently figured from the usual playing-cards, and have only
forty-eight in the pack, the ten being wanting. At either end of the
table two compartments are marked on the cloth, on each of which the
dealer lays out a card. Bets are then made by placing one’s stake on the
card betted on; and are decided according to which of those laid out
first makes its appearance, as the dealer draws card after card from the
top of the pack. It is a game at which the dealer has such advantages,
and which, at the same time, gives him such facilities for cheating,
that any one who continues to bet at it is sure to be fleeced.
Faro, which was the more favourite game for heavy betting, and was dealt
chiefly by Americans, is played on a table the same size as a monte
table. Laid out upon it are all the thirteen cards of a suit, on any of
which one makes his bets, to be decided according as the same card
appears first or second as the dealer draws them two by two off the top
of the pack.
Faro was generally played by systematic gamblers, who knew, or thought
they knew, what they were about; while monte, from its being apparently
more simple, was patronised by novices. There were also roulette and
rouge-et-noir tables, and an infinite variety of small games played with
dice, and classed under the general appellation of “chuck-a-luck.”
I should mention that in California the word _gambler_ is not used in
exactly the same abstract sense as with us. An individual might spend
all his time, and gain his living, in betting at public gaming-tables,
but that would not entitle him to the distinctive appellation of a
gambler; it would only be said of him, that he gambled.
The gamblers were only the professionals, the men who laid out their
banks in public rooms, and invited all and sundry to bet against them.
They were a distinct and numerous class of the community, who followed
their profession for the accommodation of the public; and any one who
did business with them was no more a “gambler” than a man who bought a
pound of tea was a grocer.
At this time the gamblers were, as a general thing, the best-dressed men
in San Francisco. Many of them were very gentlemanly in appearance, but
there was a peculiar air about them which denoted their profession--so
much so, that one might frequently hear the remark, that such a person
“looked like a gambler.” They had a haggard, careworn look (though that
was nothing uncommon in California), and as they sat dealing at their
tables, no fluctuation of fortune caused the slightest change in the
expression of their face, which was that of being intently occupied with
their game, but at the same time totally indifferent as to the result.
Even among the betters the same thing was remarkable, though in a less
degree, for the struggle to appear unconcerned when a man lost his all,
was often too plainly evident.
The Mexicans showed the most admirable impassibility. I have seen one
betting so high at a monte table that a crowd collected round to watch
the result. After winning a large sum of money, he finally staked it all
on one card, and lost, when he exhibited less concern than many of the
bystanders, for he merely condescended to give a slight shrug of his
shoulders as he lighted his cigarita and strolled slowly off.
In the forenoon, when gambling was slack, the gamblers would get up from
their tables, and, leaving exposed upon them, at the mercy of the
heterogeneous crowd circulating through the room, piles of gold and
silver, they would walk away, seemingly as little anxious for the safety
of their money as if it were under lock and key in an iron chest. It was
strange to see so much apparent confidence in the honesty of human
nature, and, in a city where robberies and violence were so rife, that,
when out at night in unfrequented quarters, one walked pistol in hand in
the middle of the street, to see money exposed in such a way as would be
thought madness in any other part of the world. But here the summary
justice likely to be dispensed by the crowd, was sufficient to insure a
due observance of the law of _meum_ and _tuum_.
These saloons were not by any means frequented exclusively by persons
who went there for the purpose of gambling. Few men had much inducement
to pass their evenings in their miserable homes, and the gambling-rooms
were a favourite public resort, the music alone offering sufficient
attraction to many who never thought of staking a dollar at any of the
tables.
Another very attractive feature is the bar, a long polished mahogany or
marble counter, at which two or three smart young men officiated, having
behind them long rows of ornamental bottles, containing all the numerous
ingredients necessary for concocting the hundred and one different
“drinks” which were called for. This was also the most
elaborately-decorated part of the room, the wall being completely
covered with mirrors and gilding, and further ornamented with china
vases, bouquets of flowers, and gold clocks.
Hither small parties of men are continually repairing to “take a drink.”
Perhaps they each choose a different kind of punch, or sling, or
cocktail, requiring various combinations, in different proportions, of
whisky, brandy, or gin, with sugar, bitters, peppermint, absinthe,
curaçoa, lemon-peel, mint, and what not; but the bar-keeper mixes them
all as if by magic, when each man, taking his glass, and tipping those
of all the rest as he mutters some sentiment, swallows the compound and
wipes his moustache. The party then move off to make way for others, the
whole operation from beginning to end not occupying more than a couple
of minutes.