At Stockton I received letters from home of three months’ later date; and the same evening left, in one of the river steamers, for San Francisco, where I arrived early the next morning.
CHAPTER VI.
SAN FRANCISCO.
GENERAL ESTIMATE OF GAINS—RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA.
San Francisco, which has already been several times burned down, and as often, Phœnix-like, arisen from its ashes, seems to be improved by each conflagration. A new edition, revised and improved, has just been issued. I should not have known the city. Indeed, there was little there—excepting the land, and that cut down and changed—which had been there when I left. The city of tents and sheds was changed to one of substantial edifices, while some blocks of very respectable brick houses had been built. One could not pass through the city without being impressed with the sentiment which seems to describe the whole thing, “Enterprise run mad.”[B] Each one of the vast throng hastens on, busy in his own plans and pursuits. Nothing can so well give the idea, by a single image, of San Francisco, as naming it a moral whirlpool. A mysterious, but all-pervading and powerful attraction, emanating from this wonderful point, has been felt in the remotest parts of the earth. Civilized, semi-barbarous, and savage—American, European, Asiatic, and African—feel it. The missionary and the gambler, the praying and the profane man, have all felt it. Drawn from the pulpit, the farm, the forum, the bench, they all rush—giddy, mazed—into this one vortex. Happy the few who escape unharmed!
To give such a sketch of society in San Francisco as could be understood and appreciated—
“To force it sit, till he has pencil’d off
A faithful image of the form he views”—
would indeed be a difficult task. Every thing is in such a state of transition and change, from month to month, that a truthful description now would not be such one short year hence. When I first visited the city, the gamblers generally set their tables under large tents, which answered the purpose, also, of eating-rooms. In my second visit, these tents had given place to magnificent saloons. In these vast and splendid establishments, the mind was bewildered, the senses were fascinated. Appeals—almost irresistible to the young, often to the aged, and even to those who had ministered at the altar—were made, calculated to arouse the deepest and strongest passions of our nature. There was wine, and the more intoxicating eye of beauty, to kindle and to madden. There was music, by the most accomplished and able professors of the art, to captivate. There were paintings, such as my pen may not describe; and there were treasures of silver and gold, which might be theirs on the turn of a card.
In my third visit to the city, these saloons had been burned down, and replaced with others more splendid and attractive. The wine, the music, the tables of gold, coined and uncoined, are all there; but no longer do such excited and eager crowds throng around the tables. There are still some who are risking and losing their all; but, comparatively, they are few.
While at San Francisco, an unusual case of success in mining has been made public, and created much excitement even in this city of wonders—so much so as to show that such instances are very rare. Three miners had worked a claim, from which, in the course of a few weeks, they took $84,000. Their expenses for labor, provisions, &c., were about $24,000; But they had with them each about $20,000. I was informed that several hundred miners had been attracted to the same bar by the success of these men, but that no other rich deposits had been found, and, in general, the others were not making a living. Notwithstanding the overgrown fortunes which have been, in some few cases, so rapidly accumulated, I hazard the assertion that in no other part of the United States can there be found so many persons abjectly poor, in proportion to the population, as among those who have resorted to California for purposes of mining. Much is now said, and considerable excitement felt, on the subject of the quartz mining. When two exceptions are made, I know of no locations where the quartz-crushing operations can be at present successfully prosecuted. Two reasons may be given for this opinion. One is, the high price of labor; the second is, the difficulty of replacing parts of the machinery in case of a break. Many individuals and many companies will be losers by entering into the quartz mining speculations.
The mode of conducting business in the cities is anomalous. No skill in business transactions; no far-sighted, clear judgment; no long experience in matters of commerce, insure success here. It is much as it is at the mines. A happy hit, if made by the novice—and it is as likely to be made by him as by any—makes the poor man to-day a rich man to-morrow. In the spring of 1849, the single article of saleratus sold for $12 a lb.; it could be purchased in New York at 4 cents. One hundred dollars invested in this single article, deducting all expenses, would yield at the least $25,000. At that same time, building lots in Sacramento City were held at $500; in six weeks they brought $25,000. Let any one calculate for himself what would be the amount made from fifty lots at this rate. In the space of six months, the owner of $100 might be worth a million!
Such glittering and gilded castles as these, floating through the imaginations of thousands, led to those wild speculations in lumber, provisions, and other things, which, in the end, have come tumbling down upon the heads of the builders.