The principal street of the town was about three-quarters of a mile long, and on it were most of the bankers’ offices, the principal stores, some of the best restaurants, and numerous drinking and gambling saloons.
In the Plaza, a large open square, was the only remaining house of the San Francisco of other days—a small cottage built of sun-dried bricks. Two sides of the Plaza were composed of the most imposing-looking houses in the city, some of which were of brick several stories high; others, though of wood, were large buildings with handsome fronts in imitation of stone, and nearly every one of them was a gambling-house.
Scattered over the hills overhanging the town, apparently at random, but all on specified lots, on streets which as yet were only defined by rude fences, were habitations of various descriptions, handsome wooden houses of three or four stories, neat little cottages, iron houses, and tents innumerable.
Rents were exorbitantly high, and servants were hardly to be had for money; housekeeping was consequently only undertaken by those who did not fear the expense, and who were so fortunate as to have their families with them. The population, however, consisted chiefly of single men, and the usual style of living was to have some sort of room to sleep in, and to board at a restaurant. But even a room to oneself was an expensive luxury, and it was more usual for men to sleep in their stores or offices. As for a bed, no one was particular about that; a shake-down on a table, or on the floor, was as common as anything else, and sheets were a luxury but little thought of. Every man was his own servant, and his own porter besides. It was nothing unusual to see a respectable old gentleman, perhaps some old paterfamilias, who at home would have been horrified at the idea of doing such a thing, open his store in the morning himself, take a broom and sweep it out, and then proceed to blacken his boots.
The boot-blacking trade, however, was one which sprang up and flourished rapidly. It was monopolized by Frenchmen, and was principally conducted in the Plaza, on the long row of steps in front of the gambling saloons. At first the accommodation afforded was not very great. One had to stand upon one foot and place the other on a little box, while a Frenchman, standing a few steps below, operated upon it. Presently arm-chairs were introduced, and, the bootblacks working in partnership, time was economized by both boots being polished simultaneously. It was a curious sight to see thirty or forty men sitting in a row in the most public part of the city having their boots blacked, while as many more stood waiting for their turn. The next improvement was being accommodated with the morning papers while undergoing the operation; and finally, the boot-blacking fraternity, keeping pace with the progressive spirit of the age, opened saloons furnished with rows of easychairs on a raised platform, in which the patients sat and read the news, or admired themselves in the mirror on the opposite wall. The regular charge for having one’s boots polished was twenty-five cents, an English shilling—the smallest sum worth mentioning in California.
In 1851, however, things had not attained such a pitch of refinement as to render the appearance of a man’s boots a matter of the slightest consequence.
As far as mere eating and drinking went, living was good enough. The market was well supplied with every description of game—venison, elk, antelope, grizzly bear, and an infinite variety of wild-fowl. The harbor abounded with fish, and the Sacramento river was full of splendid salmon, equal in flavor to those of the Scottish rivers, though in appearance not quite such a highly-finished fish, being rather clumsy about the tail.
Vegetables were not so plentiful. Potatoes and onions, as fine as any in the world, were the great stand-by. Other vegetables, though scarce, were produced in equal perfection, and upon a gigantic scale. A beetroot weighing a hundred pounds, and that looked like the trunk of a tree, was not thought a very remarkable specimen.
The wild geese and ducks were extremely numerous all round the shores of the bay, and many men, chiefly English and French, who would have scorned the idea of selling their game at home, here turned their sporting abilities to good account, and made their guns a source of handsome profit. A Frenchman with whom I was acquainted killed fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of game in two weeks.
There were two or three French restaurants nearly equal to some of the best in Paris, where the cheapest dinner one could get cost three dollars; but there were also numbers of excellent French and American houses, at which one could live much more reasonably. Good hotels were not wanting, but they were ridiculously extravagant places; and though flimsy concerns, built of wood, and not presenting very ostentatious exteriors, they were fitted up with all the lavish display which characterizes the fashionable hotels of New York. In fact, all places of public resort were furnished and decorated in a style of most barbaric splendor, being filled with the costliest French furniture, and a profusion of immense mirrors, gorgeous gilding, magnificent chandeliers, and gold and china ornaments, conveying an idea of luxurious refinement which contrasted strangely with the appearance and occupations of the people by whom they were frequented.