Believing that every event which in any way affects the interests or welfare of California is important to those who have watched her progress and have been astonished at her rapid rise, we will in this and a subsequent chapter, bring the narrative up to the time of issuing this work.
The city of San Francisco, in the midst of her progress and prosperity, has been twice visited by the destroying element of fire. The first calamity of this kind occurred on the morning of the 25th of December, 1849. The fire consumed all that portion of the city on and near the plaza, involving a loss, at California prices, of over a million of dollars. Fortunately, it was the rainy season. If the fire had occurred during the dry season, and the prevalence of the furious gales, the whole city, composed, as it was, of canvas tents and wooden houses, must have been destroyed. The event did not materially affect the progress of the city; for the burnt district was entirely rebuilt within twenty days.
The second great fire occurred on the night of the 4th of May, 1850. It broke out in the United States Hotel, situated on the plaza, or Portsmouth Square—the very heart of the city. The flames soon spread to the adjoining buildings, and several of the principal hotels were destroyed. Nothing could stop the progress of the fire but the tearing down of a whole block of houses on one of the streets leading from the Square. Five entire blocks of the business portion of the city were destroyed—involving a loss of about a million of dollars. To show the amount of enterprise and energy existing in San Francisco, no better opportunity is afforded than to look at the state of things in that city, ten days after the fire. We extract from the Alta Californian of the 15th of May, the following remarks:
"The Burned District.—Intimately as we are acquainted with the predominant spirit of energy and enterprise of our city, we have almost wondered at the rapidity with which the burned district is being again built up. It exceeds the speed with which the work was accomplished after the December fire. Already, in Portsmouth Square, the Bella Union and St. Charles, houses of public resort, are opened and hourly thronged. In Washington Street, two dry goods stores, 'La Amarilla' and Juan Cima's, are opened and stocked, and on both sides of the way buildings are nearly completed, and will be ready for occupation by the latter end of this week. In fact, the ruins are more than half covered over, and except that the new edifices are not of so elegant a character or so substantially built, even, as previously, they will present a handsome appearance.
"The fact of the business season having now fairly commenced, and the necessity of being alive to take advantage of it, has materially accelerated operations. The present busy hum created by the industrious mechanic, will soon give way to the usual activity and bustle of mercantile trade, and ere the departure of the next steamer a casual observer would be scarcely able to realize the devastation of the 4th inst. Notwithstanding the immense amount of property destroyed, which was not at all over-estimated, business has not been so generally depressed, even momentarily, as it was feared and anticipated. Our community have risen again to the surface of the waters with cork-like buoyancy, and the sad and gloomy faces of the early part of last week have brightened by the prosperous hopes anticipated in the future. Never was calamity taken with more fortitude and philosophy than in this city. And if to win success is but to deserve, then those who have suffered will meet with their just reward. Nil desperandum seems to be the popular motto, amalgamated with the David Crocket principle, enlarged and improved. We are satisfied that nothing can retard or check the prosperity, rapid growth, advancement and importance of this, the principal city and seaport of the Pacific coast. Viva San Francisco!"
MODE OF WASHING CLOTHES IN CALIFORNIA.
The annexed extract from the Message of the Mayor of San Francisco gives an idea of the quantity of disease and destitution in that city. No doubt San Francisco is the grand receptacle for all who become diseased in any way at the mines or other places in the interior; and this may serve to account for the extraordinary statements contained in the Message—
"During the last nine months, an expense of eighty thousand dollars has been incurred for the support of the sick and destitute, who have been thrown penniless upon our shores, and found friendless and homeless in our streets, and for the burial of those who have died without sufficient means to defray the expenses of interment. If these enormous expenditures are continued, (and it is evident from the rapid growth of the population, that they must seriously increase, unless some new system is adopted,) it will readily be perceived that a very large portion of the revenue of the city will be absorbed in defraying the expenses of the hospital department alone. Something therefore must speedily be done to remedy this great drain upon the public purse."
As an indication of the vast increase of the commerce of San Francisco, it is stated that, in six days in the month of May, 1850, there arrived at that port seventy-six vessels, freighted with cargoes to find a market there. Several large steamboats have been put upon the Sacramento and the Bay of San Francisco, and they are reaping extraordinary profits. The trip from San Francisco to Sacramento City was, a few years ago, a work of some days, but it is now performed in less than nine hours.