San Francisco was a very different city in those days from what it is to-day; the sea came almost up to Montgomery Street, and beyond Van Ness Avenue there was nothing but sand dunes shifting and changing every minute. This is practically all new now, as the great fire of 1906 swept it away. I remember the Bay and the ferryboat, the long pier at the Oakland Mole and passing the romantic and lonely Goat Island. The water seemed strangely quiet and strangely blue to me, whose only experience of the sea was the coast of Maine.
The Chinese and Mexican quarters of the city were a marvel, for both of these peoples had managed to take bits of their own countries in their entirety and transplant them on this sandy soil. San Francisco is unique (as American cities go) in being able to keep within her bosom the civilizations of foreign peoples, in their original state, long enough for them to fertilize and bring forth the best of themselves. Visitors to her shore do not immediately change their manners and customs to agree with hers—perhaps for the very good reason that she hasn’t any to agree with—but if it were no uncommon sight to see a Mexican sombrero, it was no less a common one to see a Chinese woman in native costume, feet bound, in high-stilted slippers, looking for all the world as if she had stepped down from an ancient vase, and propelled up Market Street by her big-footed “amah.”
This thoroughfare seemed to fade away at the old city hall, which was then only in the process of construction. In fact, the only landmark which appears to have survived conflagrations and the march of progress is the Cliff House. Although it has burned down several times, each new building immediately takes on the air of the old, and whether, by the intention of its builders or the architectural limitations of the rock upon which it is built, it looks the same to-day as it did when I first saw it in ’75. However one may deplore the mushroom existence of his familiar landmarks downtown, one has only to take a trip—now shorter many minutes by the change from horse to gasoline—out to the Pacific Ocean and, from a little table, sheltered by glass from the might of the winds, look out upon the same horizon, the same calm blue of the waters, and, best of all, the same Seal Rocks with their brown-coated inhabitants (grown woefully smaller in numbers now), sunning themselves and teaching their young that protection lies in remaining near at home.
The most characteristically Western survival of the “days of forty-nine” were the San Francisco bars—not speaking of the smartest ones, for those I seldom invaded. There was nothing less than ten cents in the town; nickels they gave away and pennies were thrown down the gutter. Everything was sold in terms of “bits.” Of course, there were two- and four-bit coins, but a one was the survival of the mixture of currency that had gotten into the land. Mexican, Canadian, French, etc., small silver coins were all bunched together as “bits,” and eight were called a dollar, making one the value of twelve and one-half cents. A drink theoretically cost a “bit,” but if you gave a quarter in payment, you received ten cents change. They were bound to take ten cents if you offered it, but too many deals of this kind in the same place elicited some such muttered remark as, “Tight Easterner,” or, “Why don’t you take some of the furniture along with you when you go?” The free lunch, which was really free, was served by gorgeous big men in clean white aprons, and for the price of one drink, you could have such a repast as boiled mutton and caper sauce, salmon and cream gravy with mashed potatoes, all sorts of biscuits, apple pie, fruit, and coffee. Should you dare offer a tip to this husky waiter (or, indeed, to anyone in all California at that time), you ran the risk of a strong right arm or, worse still, a tongue-lashing such as you had never heard in the effete East.
The price of a newspaper was also vague, but you were on the safe side if you offered Willie no less than a dime; for silver and gold were the only metals this child cared for. Coppers and nickels he threw into the gutter and made you a present of the paper, remarking that if you were so poor as that he would give you one. Willie was a character. We never knew where he came from or where he lived, but he had a face like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s angels and must have been the model who sat to the Lord for the type of “Mother’s Darling.” He was under ten years old, slight and rather tall, with great blue eyes and curly yellow hair. His occupations were selling matches by day and newspapers by night, and when business was slack he amused himself by calling ribald verses—parodies on such popular songs as “Pop Goes the Weasel”—at the bankers who passed by without buying. He stammered badly, adding much to the effectiveness of some of the lines. His passion was gambling, and his first utterance on meeting an acquaintance was, “M-m-m-m-match you for a dime?”
One day one of the clerks, a Southerner, and myself put up a job on Willie and offered to show him “three-hand matching.” Each choosing a different side of the coin, we won all of his cash in about ten minutes. Still in the game, he bet his matches, and, of course, we skinned him again. His lip began to tremble, but he pulled himself together and, saying, “B-b-b-busted, by God,” stalked out of the place as pretty a gentleman as ever there was. We called him back to get his matches, and tried to explain. At first he was furious at our daring to think he was no sport, but finally he saw the joke and a light came into his eyes.
That was at noon; at six o’clock, passing the Chronicle building, I saw what appeared to be a pile of boys, all absolutely absorbed in something going on in their midst. In the center was Willie, beside him a pal, and between them one of those formless caps that boys affect, entirely full of dimes and quarters. He looked up and saw me; not a muscle moved in his face, but after a second, his left eye slowly closed as if in sleep.
In spite of its being wide open, San Francisco was then one of the cleanest towns I have ever known. The French spirit had invaded it, and here again the Western civilization had taken the best from these foreigners—in this case, their cooking. The Poodle Dog and Marchand’s were already flourishing with their Cabinets Particuliers and for the first time in my life I saw wine drunk everywhere. The prostitutes were kept to themselves in one section of the city, and any woman who stayed out on the streets alone at night dared not stop and look in a shop window or loiter on a corner, as she would be taken by the arm by a large policeman and sent to Dupont Street.
This street led up the hill to Chinatown, and all along its sides were rows of one-story buildings, divided into small cubicles, each with one window and a swinging door that led directly in from the sidewalk. Everyone walked here, and it was the thoroughfare for one of the most fashionable churches, even though, sitting at the windows or leaning on the swing gates, were women of all nationalities, addressing the passers-by in the language of their country.
Everywhere were the earmarks of a populace plunged suddenly from hard work and poverty into riches greater than they could conceive of, and with no time to make the necessary adjustments. There were some attempts at making social distinctions, but it was difficult under the circumstances. Mrs. So-and-so, who lived on Nob Hill, was probably only one generation removed from the washtubs of Cripple Creek, while I, a poor assistant salesman in a department store, was a graduate of Harvard College. The father of one young woman upon whom I used to call had been so busy counting his recent millions that he had not had time to build himself one of those mansions with a drawing-room, but still stuck to a “parlor,” and used to retire gracefully to the kitchen and allow his daughter to entertain me, uninterrupted, in the front room of the house. In fact, he never made his appearance, and I saw the mother only once, both evidently departing to the nether regions at the first ring of the doorbell. Such a situation would never have been allowed in New England unless the young couple were engaged, but out West the second generation held full sway.