CHAPTER XI.

Growing importance of San Francisco-Crime and dissipationFirst Vigilance Committee-Law and. order-Building a cityDestroyed by fire-Rebuilt-Wild speculation-Strange occupations-Fortune and misfortune-First house built at Sacramento -Population of Prosperity in business and speculation-Price of land in San Francisco-Rents in San Francisco-Prices of merchandise-Amusements-Board-Labor-Cost of buildingStreets paved with merchandise-Gold-hunters still arrivingLargest product of gold-Suicide and death-Only a mining country-Import of breadstuffs-Interior steam navigation-First river steamer-Fares on the rivers.

THE rush to the mines from San Francisco, during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, was unabated still. Streams of immigrants and gold-seekers entered the Golden Gate, though large numbers were returning home. San Francisco continued to be the grand emporium of commerce. Its harbor was the only port of entry and egress on the entire coast. Here the newcomer learned his first California experience, and here the disappointed miner, the gambler, cutthroat, and courtesan plied their arts. The "Sydney Ducks” and

Hounds"-classes of desperadoes-were ever on the alert for booty. They were a great auxiliary to the reckless land-grabber, who, regardless of law or equity, possessed himself of all property from which he could. drive the occupant. These fellows were good as standing witnesses in any case, provided they "could see the color "--that is, were well paid; good on juries either to acquit their friends or convict their enemies; loud of mouth, bold in swagger; could drink more whiskey, chew more tobacco, smoke more cigars, and use more

slang phrases and profane language than anybody else; late at the bar-rooms and gambling-houses at night, and late in bed in the morning; early and often at the polls on election day; armed always with pistol, bowieknife, and sword-cane. If some land-robber wanted a few men, all he had to do was to go to the head-quarters of these gangs, and state that he wanted help: fifty or a hundred dollars apiece would bring a gang, who, with ropes, would drag down the shanty of some unoffending man, who, with fifty pistols at his head, had to surrender his property. These bands often became so bold and defiant that their robberies were celebrated with processions, banners, and bands of music. These villains were, in the summer of 1849, disbanded by the interposition of the citizens, who formed a vigilance committee, tried, convicted, and sentenced a number of them.

Later in the same year and in 1850, courts were established, and soon wholesome legislation and police regulations began to exert their influence upon a population which, at best, owing to natural causes, was wild, rash, riotous, and disorderly.

The years 1850 and 1851 exhibited great activity and progress in San Francisco; and although the greater part of the city had been burned for the fourth time, still, Phoenix-like, it rose from the ashes. Wild speculation in city lots, merchandise, and lumber had now to a great extent taken the place of the first excitement about the mines. Mud-flats were being filled in, sandhills levelled, houses built, banks, hotels, restaurants, and stores erected; employment of all kinds in demand, and thousands ready to do any thing, after their first experience of salt bacon and beans in the gulches and

mountain ravines, which refused them fortunes. Every distinction in costume, country, trade, and profession was levelled: the gouty judge and nimble tailor were catering to the hungry crowd in the restaurant; the blacksmith sawing lumber; a dentist shoeing a kicking mustang or slaughtering a bullock; a butcher keeping a millinery store; a barber cleaning tripe and making sausages; a shoemaker shaving at a dollar a head; a painter digging a gutter; a horse-doctor building a boat; a lawyer sawing firewood; a sailor milking a cow; a bookkeeper blacking boots; a jeweller picking chickens or digging clams; a merchant in the kitchen as cook; a farmer keeping an assortment store; an ox-driver painting a sign; while a sickly-looking clerk shovelled down a sand-hill. All were tradesmen, all were professional men. Trades or occupations would change with the last job or highest pay. Men who could not succeed left the country in disgust, never to return. again; while their next neighbors, with a fortune, returned to take their families to the land of gold"God's best country," as the fortunate ones would call it; and so it was to many, who, landing upon its shores penniless, were soon able to pay off their debts at home, and place themselves and families in affluence. How different with those who, forming the larger class, either returned home with barely enough to pay their passage, or who, failing in health, hopes, and fortune, have found unknown graves, or still chase the fickle phantom which allured them to a strange land.

The State of California kept continually increasing in population and wealth. Cities and villages sprang up in all directions. Sacramento, a barren waste in 1848, and in which the first frame house was erected in

January, 1849, had, in the spring of 1850, a population of twelve thousand. Other places of importance, both in the mining and agricultural regions, were springing up. Great life and bustle abounded everywhere; the gold product was still on the increase; labor was well rewarded. Fortunes were made in San Francisco, Sacramento, and in many of the mountain towns, in a few business operations, or by the constant profits of a small store. Land and rents in San Francisco had run beyond all precedent: fifty and one hundred vara lots in San Francisco were, as late as 1850, granted by the alcaldes, under the Mexican laws, to persons, on payment of sixteen dollars; many of these lots, in one or two years, were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; and many of the best city blocks now in the city cost their present owners but the above price. Fifty thousand dollars for a lot, which, a few days previous, sold at two or three thousand, was not uncommon. A rude shell of a frame store or cotton tent rented for fabulous prices: for instance, a canvas tent near the plaza-the "El Dorado"-fifteen by twenty-five feet, rented for forty thousand dollars per annum; the "Parker House,” a common two-story frame building on Kearney street, also near the plaza, brought a yearly rent of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars; a small, rough wood building at the plaza, rented by Wright & Co., brokers, at seventy-five thousand dollars per annum; a small, one-story rough building, twenty feet front, occupied as a store, rented at forty thousand dollars a year; and for poor accommodations for the custom house business a rent of seven thousand dollars per month was paid. Some leading articles of commerce were very dear: flour and salt pork, forty dollars per barrel; coarse

boots, from thirty to one hundred dollars a pair; wages for common labor, one dollar per hour; and mechanics, twelve to twenty dollars a day. Amusements were luxuries in the circus sixty dollars for a private box, and three dollars in the pit. Board in a hotel, or tent, about eight dollars a day, and from twenty-five to forty dollars per week. Lumber from three hundred to five hundred dollars per thousand. To build a brick house, it was estirnated that it would, when finished, and that too in a rough manner, cost a dollar for each brick in the building.

Soon vast overstocks of many descriptions of goods glutted the market; so much so that, rather than pay the exorbitant rents and storage necessary, the mudholes and gulches were filled up with boxes of choice tobacco, and Clay street, for a great distance, was paved with shovels, the handles making a kind of corduroy, and rather rough surface.

Immigrants and gold-seekers were still coming. In 1850, the State had a population of 117,538; twentyseven thousand people arrived in San Francisco by sea and by the Isthmus. The year 1852 showed a population of 264,435. During the year 1853, thirty-four thousand gold-seekers had returned home by sea, and fifteen thousand by land. The yield of gold in this year was the largest ever produced in the State-sixty-five million dollars. The product has kept steadily decreasing ever since at about an average of two million dollars per annum, until the present time, (1872,) when it is about twenty-five million dollars.

During the first years of the mines, much distress and disappointment prevailed, owing to diseases engendered by long voyages, hardship, and exposure in the