Men were there from all the European nations, together with Moors and Abyssinians from Africa, Mongols, Malays, and Hindoos from Asia and Australia. Turks, Hebrews, and Hispano-Americans jostled the ubiquitous Yankee, in the new streets of San Francisco.
The predominant dress, we are told, was "checked and woollen shirts, mainly red and blue, open at the bosom which could boast of shaggy robustness, or loosely secured by a kerchief; pantaloons tucked into high and wrinkled boots, and belted at the waist, where bristled an arsenal of knife and pistols. Beard and hair emancipated from thraldom, revelled in long and bushy tufts, which rather harmonized with the slouched and dingy hat. * * The gamblers affected the Mexican style of dress, white shirt with diamond studs, chain of native golden specimens, broad-brimmed hat, with sometimes a feather or squirrel's tail tucked under the brim, top-boots, and a rich scarlet sash or silk handkerchief thrown over the shoulder, or wound around the waist."
They were a buoyant race, brave, intrepid, light-hearted—above all things free from restraint.
They had braved all hardships and dangers to reach the land of their desire. They had reached there safely, however, and they exulted. They overflowed with activity; they worked jubilantly and untiringly.
They shouted, they fought, they gambled, in their moments of recreation, intoxicated with the bracing climate, with their excitement of success, and with that rollicking freedom which threw off all shackles of custom or self-restraint.
They worshipped success, and greatness with them meant "fitness to grasp opportunity!"
In their eyes the unpardonable sin was meanness.
Fifty cents was the smallest sum which could be offered for the most trivial of services.
Laborers obtained a dollar an hour, artisans twenty dollars per day. Laundry expenses exceeded the price of new underwear.
They loved grandeur. Bootblacks carried on business in prettily fitted up recesses furnished with cushioned chairs, and containing a liberal supply of newspapers.