BAR ROOM AT SONORA
The weather was oppressively warm, and the iced “drinksâ€�[11] were necessary even to a literary society;—so much so, that the hat was kept continually spinning by public acclamation. There was no lack of sensible and entertaining conversation, and the evenings passed with these gentlemen were to my thinking none the less pleasant, although perhaps less literary, for the twirling of the Chinese hat.
A levée, or sea-wall, has been built in front of the city, to protect it from the river when it rises with the high spring tides; but the river generally undermines these works, and flows over the surrounding plain as it has been wont to do for ages past.
A large number of old dismantled hulks, now converted into floating houses, are moored along the front of the levée, and it is from these probably the rats first landed that are now so distinguished at Sacramento for their size and audacity. These animals come out after dark in strong gangs, as if the town belonged to them, and attack anything that may happen to have been left on the wharf during the night; being very numerous, the destruction they cause to merchandise is a serious loss.
Ten thousand dollars were offered, I was told, to the man who should clear the town, and seduced by this bribe, some one in the rat-catching line volunteered to draw all the rats into the country, and there enclose them in a paddock, to be publicly exposed previous to a massacre; but whether the rats thought it best to leave well alone, and be content with the comfortable quarters and nice pine-apple cheeses they enjoyed in the city, or whether they objected to country air, does not appear; but they never went out to the paddock, except one, who is reported to have approached within a reasonable distance of the vain-glorious rat-catcher, and then standing on his hind legs, after the manner of rats, and scratching the tip of his nose contemplatively with his paw, he turned tail for the city, causing grievous disappointment to five terrier dogs, who ineffectually chevied him in.
The conflagrations of San Francisco had been attributed to incendiarists, and as many attempts to fire the town had been frustrated, it is probable that this was the case. A Volunteer-Guard, therefore, patrolled the city of Sacramento at night, to guard against this evil, and to protect the inhabitants from the wholesale plunder of organised bands of burglars. Crime had increased so rapidly of late in San Francisco, and robbers and incendiarists had become so emboldened by the impotence and venality of the justiciary, that the citizens organised a society styled the Vigilance Committee, for the purpose of affording the protection to life and property that the law would not bestow.
So far was well; but this society, composed of men who smarted under personal loss, attributed perhaps unjustly to incendiarism, took upon themselves the dispensation of life and death.
Men detected, as was supposed, in the act of felony only, were tried, sentenced, and executed, without defence, in the same night.