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THE MYSTERIES AND MISERIES OF SAN FRANCISCO.
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THE
MYSTERIES AND MISERIES
OF
SAN FRANCISCO.
BY A CALIFORNIAN.
SHOWING UP ALL THE VARIOUS CHARACTERS AND NOTABILITIES, (BOTH IN HIGH
AND LOW LIFE) THAT HAVE FIGURED IN SAN FRANCISCO
SINCE ITS SETTLEMENT.
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NEW-YORK:
GARRETT & CO., PUBLISHERS,
NO. 18 ANN-STREET.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
GARRETT & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern
District of New-York.
THE
MYSTERIES AND MISERIES
OF
SAN FRANCISCO.
--------------
CHAPTER I
The Alarm—The Flames—The Ladder.
San Francisco, on the marge of the sea, with towering hills behind her,
lay basking in the sun like a serpent by the side of a rock.
The dwellings of the more fortunate classes loomed pleasantly on the
side of the large round hills in the distance, and might with the aid of
a little fancy, have been metamorphosed into the castellated domains of
the feudal barons whose reign succeeded that of absolute barbarism in
Europe. Those quiet dwellings amid the solitude of nature, present a
vivid contrast to the stirring scenes of the town below, and accordingly
all who possess taste and the means of gratifying it, rear a building
among the hills to which they can retire, after the fatigues of the day,
and solace themselves with the comforts of domestic retiracy, and the
grand simplicity of nature.
In giving a _coup d’œil_ at the scene, from the city itself, one is
struck by the pointed roof rising above a range of hills which lie to
the south west of the noble harbor, and which crowns a dark pile that,
on a nearer approach, seems to lean against the side of a mountain upon
whose peak linger the last beams of the setting sun. This extensive
edifice is the dwelling or homestead of the wealthy and far-famed Senor
de Castro, an old resident of the country, and one of the proudest of
the ancient lords of the soil. His horses are the best, his table the
most sumptuous, and his servants the most numerous of any ranchero in
the regions round about California.
It was early on one afternoon in June, 18—, that several young men,
mostly Americans, were conversing around a table in one of the principle
Cafes in the young city of San Francisco; a stout robust man nearly
forty years of age, and dressed partly in the English style and partly
in that of the country, with leggings and heavy blunt spurs, and a red
sash about his middle, was discussing the merit of the auguadent sold in
Santiago, a city of Chile, and having become very eloquent on this
important topic, he set down his glass upon the table so violently as to
shatter it to atoms.
‘Give me your good old-fashioned horn tumbler,’ cried he, with an oath,
‘and leave these baby-toys to the women and children!’
‘You like to take your liquor in a horn?’ said a young American clerk to
a provision dealer, ‘now I prefer a glass, if it were only for the
cleanliness of the thing,
Yes, by the mass!
Give me a glass
To toast a lass,
In horns should never be,
Remembered when
We married men
Quaff denty or chee chee.’
‘You married men!’ exclaimed the stouter disputant, laughing.
‘A marriage extempore,’ muttered a saturnine young American, with an
enormous head of black hair. ‘When are you going to send that little
girl back to her mother?’
‘Silence, Pothook!’ cried the other, ‘you know that you would have given
all the old shoes in your locker to have got one smile from her,
yourself—’
‘Yes, envious Pothook,’ cried another youth, whose accent betrayed the
Cockney, ‘if Cardwell has a notion to settle down in the calm of
domestic life, and—’
‘Settle! Ten thousand blunderbusses!’ laughed the stout man, ‘When did
you ever know Cardwell to settle anything but his grog bills—them’s the
settlements he is most accustomed to.’
‘But I mean,’ added the Cockney; ‘that he is not running around after
every pretty face like—like some people, always excepting the present
honorable company, as a matter of course.’
‘Oh! of course!’ said Pothook feelingly.
‘Yet,’ remarked a tall, pale young man, who seemed to have recovered
from some dangerous illness—‘Yet, let me tell you that Cardwell is not
so innocent after all, as he seems to be. I saw him, the other day,
stand for half an hour, looking up at a certain house in Clay street
with all the eyes in his head, and meaning no offence to the gentleman,
I don’t by any manner of means dispute his taste.’
‘Oh! the young villain!’ cried the stout man, roaring with laughter.
In the midst of his jollity and noisy vociferations, a young fellow from
‘the States’ who had been silent until then, demurely asked—‘Do any of
you know what is good for rats?’
This made the stout man laugh still louder—‘You had better inquire what
is _bad_ for rats,’ said he at length; ‘for to judge by their sleek
hides and plump bellies, I should think they had already had enough that
was good and wholesome—perdition catch the born devils! Last night,
about an hour before morning—’ the speaker stopped, as the sound of a
bell rang violently, and the cry of ‘fire’ at once arose in the streets.
‘Never mind, go on!’ said the Cockney.
‘Never mind the bell,’ said Cardwell. ‘We can’t be disturbed in our
pleasures by these domestic affairs.’
‘Why, by the noise,’ said the stout man, ‘it would appear that there was
a polite invitation given to all citizens that their presence might be
required in the adjoining streets, and as the wind is coming up fresh—’
‘There is no time to be lost, my good fellows!’ cried a tall, elegantly
formed youth, rushing into the apartment from an adjoining room. ‘Half
the city is in flames!’
So saying, the youth hastened away, followed by the revellers.
The whole town was in an uproar. As they gained the street, they were
met by the strong sea breeze that filled the air with dust, and
betokened no good to those whose property was at that moment encircled
by the flames.
The Sansome Truck Company, with their hooks and ladders, were rushing
by, their scarlet coats powdered with dust, and making the welkin ring
with their shouts. The elegant youth of whom we have spoken was one of
the first that reached the fire. Already was the house of Senor del
Castro completely enveloped by sheets of flame, and from the windows of
some of the adjoining buildings the streams of fire darted forth, and
moved swiftly off toward the South on the wings of the gale.
Several persons, among whom were Cardwell, and the stout man of the
cafe, busied themselves in tearing up the planks in the immediate
vicinity of the conflagration, for the streets being laid down with
plank, instead of stones, aid greatly in the spread of the flames. The
firemen had brought streams of water to bear on the principal building,
when suddenly there appeared at an upper window, a fair and youthful
female form, evidently belonging to one of the higher classes of the
country, whose dark hair fell in rich masses about her shoulders, and
partly concealed a face in which the snow and the rose contended for
mastery.
For an instant every one paused in astonishment, nor was her
overmastering beauty unheeded in that moment of fearful excitement; for
the cry that a woman was in the house now rose shrilly on the air, and
was echoed in every street in the city. The ladders were hurried to the
spot by men frantic in their haste to save so fair a specimen of
mortality from a dreadful death, while the object of all this interest,
the lovely cause of the wild confusion that pervaded the masses below,
simply placed one little white hand to her eyes as if to shut out the
sight of the surrounding horrors, and steadied herself with the other by
placing it on the sill of the window.
In the moment that the ladder was placed against the side of the house,
a shrill cry was heard in the rear of the firemen, and a stately form
was seen forcing itself through the throng with giant strides, and
thrusting aside everybody and everything which opposed its progress. One
glance was sufficient to convince the spectators that the father of the
imperilled girl was rushing to her rescue. His hat was gone, and his
dark but silvered locks floated on the breeze, the sweat stood in beads
upon his broad forehead, and his face, though bearded and mustachioed
according to the custom of the country, was pale with anxiety and
horror.
‘Oh, for the love of God!’ cried he, ‘my daughter! my daughter!’
As he reached the front of the building, the flames gushing from the
lower windows drove back the brave men who had charge of the ladder. The
Senor del Castro clasped his hands, and uttering a cry of despair, would
have rushed into the house, the lower part of which was completely
filled with flames. The stout man of the cafe threw himself upon the
distracted father, and by the timely aid of Cardwell and the Cockney,
succeeded in dragging him out of the reach of danger. But the fire
companies had not been idle while these events were transpiring. They
had brought the ladder to the building at another place. They had placed
it firmly against the side of the house, when a man, addressing an
officer of the Fire Department, exclaimed in a tone of despair, ‘Oh, my
God! Charley, the ladder is too short. It don’t reach anywhere near the
window!’
Quicker than thought, Charley placed himself in front of the window at
which the girl stood, and bade them place the feet of the ladder on his
shoulders. In an instant, this was done, one foot of the ladder resting
on each of his shoulders. The elegant youth of the cafe then sprang
forward—
‘That’s right, Monteagle,’ cried Charley, ‘climb right up by me and then
on the ladder; bring down the young lady or never live to tell of your
failure.’
But before these words had been fairly uttered, the daring youth was
half way up the ladder. All eyes were now fixed on the adventurer. For a
moment all seemed silent except the hysteric wailings of the anguished
father, and the awful roaring of the flames, as the wind swept through
every aperture of the building, and added ten-fold to the fury of the
conflagration.
Before Monteagle had reached the lower sill of the window, he was
discovered to be on fire; but at almost the same instant, a stream of
water from the pipe of an engine drenched him to the skin. Then both the
youth and the girl were entirely hidden from view by the rolling forth
of a dense volume of smoke streaked with flame. One cry—one general cry
of despair burst from the throng below, and the Senor, not doubting that
both his daughter and her deliverer had perished, gave a deep groan and
sunk senseless to the earth. But loud rose the voice of Charley upon the
air at the awful crisis—‘They are alive yet! Don’t be frightened, man, I
feel the weight of both of them on my shoulders, now—now—the ladder
shakes! they are coming down!’
Several men with large _ponchos_ were crowded around the bottom of the
ladder to smother the flames, in case the young lady should be on fire,
by wrapping her tightly in these ample garments, and they looked up on
hearing the cheerful exclamations of Charley. The feet and legs of a man
were discerned below the smoke that had enveloped the upper part of the
ladder, then the bottom of a lady’s robe, and finally the face of
Monteagle begrimed and blistered looked down upon the trembling
expectants. The head of the girl reclined on the shoulder of the gallant
youth, her black hair flowing down his back, while her arms hung
listless by his sides—she was in a state of insensibility.
As soon as Monteagle and his lovely burthen were within reach of the
multitude a dozen hands grasped them, and while the friends of the youth
bore him off on their shoulders to administer such healing remedies as
his case required, for a part of his hair—his heavy brown locks—was
burnt off, and a blister on his forehead showed too plainly that a
moment longer would have consigned both the young lady and her deliverer
to the realm from which no returning spirit has come back to describe
the final parting of the soul from its material envelope.
The girl herself was carried to the arms of her father, who, just
awaking from his swoon, cried in a gasping voice ‘Inez! Inez! where is
my Inez?’ and plucking a sharp-pointed dagger from his breast, he was
about to end his agony by thrusting it to the hilt in his heart. Quicker
than lightning, the man who was called Charley grasped the wrist of the
desperate man, and holding it like a vice in his stalwart grasp, pointed
with the other hand to the girl, and said in his rough masculine voice:
‘None of that! If I’d thought you would take it so hard that we had
saved your daughter’s life, but we would have—no, not that exactly, for
she’s worth saving on her own account!’
While Charley was delivering this speech, the cinders were raining down
on his head, and he shook them off as a lion would have shaken great
flies from his forehead, but others were not so insensible to a shower
of fire-brands, and the Senor was dragged farther from the scene of
ruin.
When the Senor perceived that his Inez was really by his side, he gave
vent to the most extravagant exclamations of joy. Rushing to the Chief
Engineer, whom he supposed to be the savior of his child, he clasped the
sturdy fireman in his arms, called him every name that is flattering to
the pride of man, emptied his pockets of all his gold, and tried to
force into his hands a precious ring that he wore on his finger, and
which was said to contain a diamond of great value. Charley said that
his duty called him elsewhere, and we next saw him plunging into the
thickest of the throng to bring up his forces to the principal point of
attack, and to expedite the tearing up of the planks on the street, for
they had become thoroughly ignited in some places, and the flames were
marching through the slight wooden buildings of the town with the
imperious step of a conqueror.
No sooner had the young lady recovered consciousness, than she raised
herself to her feet, and looked anxiously on every side as if in search
of some object which she could not find.
‘Here comes your father,’ said Cardwell, who had been the most officious
in bearing off the girl to a place of safety, and applying cold water
and other restoratives to her face and temples.
Inez took the hand of her father, but still her eyes wandered through
the throng as if seeking another, and while she was led away by the old
Senor, she walked listlessly and thoughtfully, as if something pressed
heavily upon her mind.
By this time every gambling-house, every drinking shop, every pulperie,
and every thieving den had poured out its crowds upon the streets of San
Francisco, and a vast proportion of the inhabitants of the city were
thronging around the scene of conflagration. Here was a gang of thieves,
pretending to be very officious in removing the goods from a store-house
that had just kindled, while the eager glancing of their eyes, and the
half-shy, half-brazen way they shouted to each other, by way of
encouragement to preserve and to hasten the work, sufficiently denoted
that they had come to purloin whenever an opportunity offered, and that
their zeal was merely intended to blind the eyes of others, and lull
suspicion in regard to their ulterior purposes; and it would seem that
no lack of opportunity was here, for such was the excitement, such was
the confusion, the tumbling of men upon others, the running hither and
thither, the cries of alarm and distress, the shriek of the wind, and
the roaring of the flames as they went leaping, darting, and whirling
from house to house, from corner to corner, and from street to street,
that the cautious thief whose heart was marbled against human
sufferings, and thought only of turning the disasters of others to his
own advantage, might carry on his nefarious trade with almost as much
impunity as that of the burrowing mole, who treasures his stolen grain
under the earth while the plain above is rent by the tempest’s fury.
Yet, even in the general whirl of reason and reflection attendant upon
these rapid conflagrations, there sometimes chances to be an eye
unengaged for a moment which may light upon the plunderer in the very
nick of time, and when least expected by himself. Such was the case now,
just as the flames had reached Montgomery street, and were reaching
forth their long red tongues towards the pile of stores on Jackson
street, the Cockney mentioned at the commencement of this narrative saw
a fellow hugging to his bosom a little iron safe, and stealthily
escaping under cover of the smoke, along the street towards the harbor.
He raised the cry of ‘_Stop thief! Picaroon! Coquin!_’ and in as many
other languages as he could bring to his aid, he gave the alarm to such
individuals as were within the reach of his voice. The merchants
themselves who were near the spot, joined in the chase, and in less than
two minutes more than a hundred persons were at the heels of the man
with the safe. He headed directly for the water, and had nearly reached
it, when a couple of Chinamen in blue nankeens threw themselves across
his path. The desperate wretch dashed the iron safe into the face of one
of them, still retaining hold of it, however, and he fell covered with
blood, and then, with one hand, the thief grasped the long cue of the
other and jerked him to the ground. He then darted forward again,
leaving the two disastered Fee-fo-fums sitting upright in the middle of
the street, and uttering the most doleful lamentations. Amain the crowd
came sweeping down to the water’s edge, tumbling the two Chinamen over
and over, who cried out most piteously while rolling in the dust under
the feet of the pursuers. The thief perceiving no way of escape on the
land, sprang into a skiff and pushed off from the shore. For a moment,
his foes stood panting on the shore like baffled tigers, eyeing the man
as with two small oars he ploughed through the waves and receded farther
and farther from the strand. At length a loud hail was heard from a
point farther down, some three hundred yards from the spot where the
pursuers were clustered, and on turning their eyes in that direction,
the crowd beheld a slender but well-formed youth tugging at a heavy
boat, which lay partly on the shore and partly in the water, and vainly
endeavoring to get it afloat.
With a yell that rang on the air like the onset cry of a troop of wild
Indians, the whole body of pursuers ran towards the boat.
‘Hah! Monteagle, is that you?’ cried our Cockney, who arrived first at
the spot—‘It was I who gave the alarm! How much is there in the safe?’
‘That is best known to my employers,’ returned Monteagle evasively,
‘enough, you may be sure, to warrant the most vigorous endeavors in
getting it into our hands. Those who take the thief will be well
rewarded.’
‘Come then! heave O! heave, ahoi!’ cried three or four lusty fellows who
had now come up, and applied their shoulders to the boat in good
earnest. It began to move, and as it finally slid roaring into the
waves, Monteagle, and a dozen others leaped on board. A few strokes of
their long oars cleared them from the beach and gave free play to their
motions as they sunk the blades of their oars deep into the brine, and
threw themselves far back at every stroke; a movement which to the
practised eye of the mariner at once announced that whatever experience
they might previously have had in this line, was not in the service of
the nation, but had been acquired in the pursuit of that marvellous fish
which swallowed Jonah.
The winds were unusually violent that afternoon, and the water was very
rough. This circumstance was much in favor of the large boat, and
although the robber was a powerful man, and exerted his utmost, yet his
pursuers continually gained upon him. He was obliged to stop a few
moments to bail out his skiff, using one of his boots for that purpose;
and this fact at once convinced Monteagle and his men that he labored
under great disadvantages in a sharp, combing sea such as was then
driving into the harbor before the screaming gale. The thief himself
seemed to give up all hope of escape and relaxed his efforts, no doubt
husbanding his strength for exertions of a different character.
‘Now, my brave fellows,’ cried Monteagle, ‘lay back and give it to her!
do your prettiest and you can make the old barge hum, and we’ll soon
come up with that picaroon yonder; and understand that I am authorized
to promise a high reward.’
‘Oh, never mind the reward,’ interrupted a stout Irishman,
magnanimously. ‘It’s for the pure honor of the thing that we are
working, sure, and to support the laws.’
‘Yes, to support the laws!’ cried a short, stout, red-faced fellow, of
such equivocal appearance, that one might have taken him for a beardless
youth or a man of sixty years, for a native or a foreigner, a cunning
knave or a natural fool. He carried an enormous head on his broad round
shoulders, upon which were only a few scattering hemp-like hairs, but
his cheeks were fat and smooth, and his eyes always seemed ready to roll
out of their sockets.
‘Yes, to support the laws!’ said the strange being, in a smothered tone
that seemed to proceed from the bottom of the abdomen, while his heavy
goggle eyes seemed to be thinking of something altogether foreign from
the subject, and the continual working of his enormous mouth led
Monteagle to say to himself that the fellow was ‘chewing the cud of
sweet and bitter fancy.’
But now they were within two oars’ length of the villain in the skiff,
when the latter ceased rowing, and starting upon his feet, brandished
one of his oars in the air as if it had been the mace of an ancient
knight, and shrieked out in a tone of fury, that he ‘would dash in the
skull of any man that laid a flipper on him!’
As Monteagle stood up in the head of the boat, this threat might be
considered a matter more directly appertaining to himself than to any
other person present. Yet, every one uttered a shout of defiance, and
half a dozen strokes brought the barge up to the skiff. The head of the
large boat struck the skiff a-midships, square off and on, and for an
instant it seemed as if the latter would have turned bottom up. The
thief, however, balanced his boat well, at the same instant that he
struck a terrible blow with his oar at the head of Monteagle. The youth
evaded the falling oar, by jumping dexterously aside and, at the same
moment, drew a pistol from his breast. Before he could fire, he was
surprised by a powerful blow on the side of his head which came from
behind. Turning his head, he saw the big Irishman who had so gallantly
disclaimed all interested motives, with both fists double and ready to
repeat the blow which had nearly deprived him of recollection. This,
however, lasted but an instant, for all was confusion now. The Irishman
was choked down by an English cooper; the man with the big head and wide
mouth came to the aid of the Irishman, while the robber in the skiff
dashed his oar into the faces and brought it down lustily on the heads
and backs of his adversaries in the barge.
The diversion which had been made in favor of the robber, plainly
announced that the Irishman and the big head were accomplices of the
former, and had entered the barge and joined the pursuit in order to
render him efficient aid in time of need.
The fight became general. Big Head and the Irishman fully engaged the
attention of Monteagle and two men of the barge’s crew, while the
robber, determined not to be taken alive, fought with a desperation not
to be imagined by any who have never seen a man resolved upon death or
escape.
‘Blast me!’ cried the Cockney, ‘but these Sydney ducks are hatched out
in the wrong nest,’ as he received a kick in the face from Big Head
while the latter was struggling under a thwart and using both hands and
feet to defend himself against the loyal portion of the barge’s crew.
This melee had lasted some time, during which the pistol of Monteagle
had passed into the hands of the big Irishman, who falling a second time
from the effects of a chance blow dealt by his accomplice in the skiff,
pointed the weapon at Monteagle as he fell, and pulled the trigger. The
charge took effect on the youth; everything grew suddenly dark around
him, and he fell senseless into the bottom of the boat. The battle,
however, was still waged with relentless fury on both sides. The robber,
cheered by the hope of final victory, now sprang from his skiff into the
barge, and stamping on the head of Monteagle as he lay insensible under
the thwarts, he used his oar, now broken into a convenient shape and
size, about the heads of his enemies. To say that blood flowed, would be
nothing new, as there was scarcely a man in the boat who had not
received a wound already; but now heads and arms were broken; sometimes
Big Head and the Irishman were both down at a time, and then victory
seemed certain to the loyal party; then the former would be up again and
fighting desperately. But three men against eight or nine could not hold
out forever, and the big Irishman, at length, reeled and sank, overcome
by fatigue and loss of blood. Big Head was then silenced by a rap on the
skull with a tiller, and after a most desperate resistance, the robber
himself was bound hand and foot.
The crew then sat down to take breath, and next proceeded to wash the
blood from their faces. On their way to the shore they were met by
another boat that had put off to their assistance, and in her was
recognized Mr. Vandewater, one of the firm that had been robbed.
‘Where’s Monteagle?’ was the first inquiry of this gentleman as the two
boats met.
The boat’s crew started and looked about them, discovered the youth
lying senseless in the bottom of the boat. Smarting under their own
wounds, and hot with the late contest, they had entirely forgotten the
lad who led the charge. ‘Oh!’ said the Cockney, binding a handkerchief
about his scarred head, ‘I had like to have forgotten him, sir. It was
he that first got hold of the barge—I was the one that saw the thief
take the safe—I gave the first alarm, sir.’
Mr. Vandewater by this time held the head of young Monteagle on his
knee, and was examining into his condition, but, looking up a moment, he
replied to the Cockney,
‘And the safe, where is it?’
‘There, now,’ ejaculated the robber as he wiped the bloody foam from his
mouth against his shoulder, ‘what a fool I was that I didn’t cast the d—
thing into the drink, God! they’ll get it.’
Mr. Vandewater assisted in removing Monteagle to the other boat, and
telling the men in the barge to call in the morning at his house, he
told the rowers in his own yawl to pull for the skiff. The little bark
was soon reached, and the safe was found in its bottom. Mr. Vandewater
took possession of his property, and returned speedily to the shore with
Monteagle, whose situation, if he were indeed alive, required immediate
attention.
When the barge reached the landing, there was no lack of welcomers on
the beach, for the latter part of the battle in the boat had been
observed by many spectators. The robber, who had escaped injury better
than could have been expected, was handed out of the barge amid the
shouts of the populace, and taken possession of by the police; but,
strange as it may seem, the Irishman and Big Head were suffered to go
among their friends; perhaps it was judged by their appearance that they
had suffered punishment enough already.
The devastations of the fire had been wide and fearful. In an incredible
short time, a large portion of the city had been laid in ruins.—Houses
and streets had suffered alike, the planking of the thoroughfares
rendering them equally combustible with the buildings.
On the day succeeding these events, a pale youth, with a bandage about
his temples, lay in a darkened room some two miles from the town of San
Francisco, seeming to be asleep; and yet the almost marble whiteness of
the features might have led a casual spectator to suppose that the
coroner was required in his case, rather than the surgeon. The bed upon
which he lay, as well as the chaste elegance of the furniture about the
apartment, betokened that the master of the mansion had eminently been
successful in the general struggle for wealth, and also that he
possessed a liberal taste which enabled him to employ his means for the
embellishment as well as for the support of life. The windows of the
chamber looked out upon an extensive garden, nicely arranged and kept,
and romantically varied with rocks and underwood of natural growth. The
house itself was an elegant edifice standing on a hill-side, and
commanding a fine view of the surrounding country.
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