USA > California > A picture of pioneer times in California, illustrated with anecdotes and stores taken from real life > Part 10
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It was nine o'clock in the evening when John reached the delivery window. Just then the round, fat face of a little Englishman employed in the Postoffice appeared at the open square, and said, in a loud, authoritative voice: " No more let- ters to-night. It is nine o'clock." And down he slapped the slide. John instantly tapped loudly on the pane of window glass. The fat little man turned around and looked; John beckoned to him to draw near, saying: " What did you say, sir ?" The little official put his face up close to the pane of glass, saying in the same loud voice: "Are you deaf, fellow ? I said no more letters to- night!"
He had hardly said the last word when Mack's fist came crash- ing through the glass, right on top of the little man's nose, laying him full length on the Postoffice floor, spouting blood like a whale when struck by a harpoon. Our whole line, of
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course, gave John three hearty cheers. Mack turned round to us and said, in the coolest way, "Keep in your line, boys; it is only a little Englishman that did not know 'our ways.' I had to give him a lesson, that is all. Keep your line, boys."
A man by the name of Short, who was employed in the Post- office and who knew McGlynn, now came running to the window, and, again opening the delivery slide, called out: " Oh, Mr. McGlynn, do not let them pull down the door. We will deliver; we will deliver;" and so they did while there was a man to ask for a letter that night. I, of course, enjoyed the scene very much; but I felt sure John would be called up before the Alcalde the next day. So, when next I met him, I asked him if any trouble had come to him out of the matter. " Trouble," said he, "why of course not. Colonel Geary called on me the next day, and made the most ample apology for having told them to shut the window at nine. He said he had poor pay, and but few clerks allowed him by the Government; so I excused him, and we had a drink and parted the best of friends, the Colonel assuring me, over and over again, that nothing of the kind should happen again." I laughed immoderately at this, while Mack pretended not to see anything strange or ludicrous in it, but I saw from the twinkle of his eye that he enjoyed the Postmaster's calling to apologize. "Look at my hand," he continued; " it has two cuts on it; whether from the glass or the Englishman's nose, I caunot tell."
E. Harrison was the Collector of the Port of San Francisco in 1849. There was no regularity in the way the duties were col- lected. Harrison was appointed by Governor Mason or Gov- ernor Riley, and told to collect the duties according to the laws of the United States, as nearly as he could. He did so, I be- lieve, to the best of his judgment, and I hope honestly, but he kept few, if any accounts, and very few assistants or clerks. Generally, when a ship arrived, its captain would call on the Collector and give a full exhibit of his cargo. The Col- lector then sent for each of the owners or consignees of the goods. They showed their invoices, and the Collector, or his clerk, made out a statement of what each merchant should pay. This the merchant paid, without any dispute or hesitation. The Collector then took the money, put it into a sack, without mak- ing any book account of it. When he had any expenses to pay, that he thought were chargeable to the Government, he paid
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them out, and what was left in the sack was kept for Uncle Sam until he should call for it. When a sack got full under this process, it was sewed up and laid aside, and another put in the process of filling. These sacks were made of heavy canvas, or buckskin. Stealing, at this time in San Francisco, was almost unknown, which may account for Mr. Harrison's not being par- ticularly careful of his sacks, as would appear from a circum- stance told me by John McGlynn. John said his firm had done some draying for the Custom House to the amount of four or five hundred dollars. He called on the Collector for it. Mr. Harrison looked at the bill and said: "All right, Mack." "Here, Tom," speaking to his only clerk; " go up stairs, and under the table to the left hand side you will see five buckskin sacks full of gold. The top one you will find open. Out of that pay Mr. McGlynn his bill of $475, and put the sack back, just as you found it." "Yes, Mr. Harrison, I will do so; but you are mis- taken in the number of the sacks there. There are only four in all." " Oh, yes, Tom; I know there are five, for I counted them yesterday, when I put that last one there." "No, Mr. Harri- son; you are mistaken. I know, for I counted them this morn- ing, when I paid that boatman his bill out of the open sack." " Now, Tom, I know you are mistaken, and I will just stand the dinners for us three that there are four full sacks and one nearly full, which is open." "I will take that bet," said Tom. All proceeded upstairs, and, to the Collector's surprise, Tom was right; so they went to the restaurant, and the bet was paid. The clerk and Mack laughed heartily, and the latter had an idea that the clerk had the cream of the joke. Soon after this, Col- lector James Collier arrived with President Taylor's commission in his pocket. He was a large, pompous man, disagreeable in his manner, and had no faith in California, except as a place to make money and then clear out from, before "the bottom fell out," as was his favorite expression. On arriving, Collier called on Harrison at his " Custom House " rooms. He was all pomposity, and wished to know when it would be convenient for Mr. Harrison to turn over the office of Collector to him. "Now, right away," said Harrison; " come along with me." Collier followed. " Now," said Harrison, " here is the room; the rent of it is paid up to the first of next month. These two desks and these four chairs belong to the Government, for I paid for them out of the money I collected, and here are twenty-four sacks of
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cash." As Harrison pointed to the cash, he turned to leave the room. "Sir," said Collier, " before you go, please count that cash out to me." "Count it out yourself, Mr. Collier, if you wish it counted. I have not the least idea how much is there, nor do I care, as to that matter. I know all I ever collected, except my salary and expenses, is there-that is, if no one stole any of it. So good morning, Collector; I hope you will have luck in your new position. I am glad you have come, for I was terribly tired of the business." So Collier made a great flourish of counting the money before witnesses, and of reporting the matter to Washington.
When the desolating fire of May 4, 1851, swept the city, the Chief of the Fire Department, F. D. Kohler, was absent in Sac- ramento, and John A. McGlynn, being his first assistant, had to take charge of that terrible battle against the devouring flames, and acquitted himself well. All night did the firemen work as firemen never worked before. They had to use the old-fashioned fire engines, which were worked by hand. Daylight canie to find the flames not yet subdued. John's men were all getting exhausted, and he was pressing every able-bodied man he could see into the service, to help the poor fellows who had worked so faithfully. He spied a huge, comfortable-looking individual sauntering down Sacramento street, who wore a light-colored, heavy pea-jacket. His hands were thrust into its pockets, and as he walked he had an air of self-complacency that indicated that he was rather enjoying the scene before him. His expres- sion of face plainly said: "Work on, you chaps, there at that engine. As for me, this is none of my funeral." He was, in fact, of that class then known in San Francisco as " Sydney Ducks." John stepped up to him, and said, in a quick, decided voice: " Here, friend, give us a hand at this engine. The boys are very tired." The Sydney man muttered something in reply, which John did not hear, and passed on. In ten minutes the fellow sauntered back again, looking rather contemptuously at
the tired-out workers. Mack could not stand his insolent way of acting any longer; so, stepping directly in front of him, he said: "Here, friend, turn right in and help those boys." At the same time he laid his hand on his collar and gave him a slight jerk to face him for the engine. The Sydney man drew back indignantly, and made a blow at John's outstretched arm to knock it from his collar. In an instant John's left fist,
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clenched into hard iron, came like a trip-hammer on the nose and about the eyes of the Sydney man, completely confusing him, and before he could recover his senses John, with one or two powerful jerks, brought him to the shaft of the engine. Here, without an effort at resistance, the fellow laid hold, and worked with the rest; but the blood spurted from his nose and made a terrible sight, so John whispered to one of his men that he would walk down the street, as if to examine one of the other engines, and that as soon as he was a little way off to tell the Sydney man to run. These directions were carried out to the letter, and when Mack returned the boys told him that, for a fat man, that Sydney man had made the best time they ever saw at a foot-race.
At this time Frank Tilford was City Recorder - or Police Judge, as that official is now called. While holding Court the next day after the fire, a large, fat man, wearing a heavy pea- jacket, his nose all swollen, and his eyes bunged up, made his appearance and addressed the Judge : " Your Honor, my name is Jenkins. I am a free-born Englishman, just arrived, three days ago, from Sydney, and I now come to your Honor to de- mand justice for an outrageous attack upon my person by a fre- man, whose number I have taken down from the cap he wore when he assaulted me." As he spoke he handed the Judge the number. He then went on to give the Judge a very correct ac- count of the whole circumstance. The Judge listened patiently, and with some difficulty preserved his gravity, as he at once rec- ognized McGlynn as the chief in the play. Then he addressed Jenkins thus: " Sir, I have heard you state your case, and have to say to you that it is most fortunate for you that the fireman whose number you have given me is not now here to hear your story, or my duty would compel me to fine you $100, and im- prison you in the County Jail for thirty days, for disobeying the order of that fireman. This, sir, would have been the result on your own statement." Jenkins, on hearing this, glanced with his blurred eyes all round the Court-room, as if in fear that Mc- Glynn might appear, and then made a rush for the door, and was once more on a quick run.
This scene amused Judge Tilford very much, and when re- peating it over to McGlynn they both enjoyed a hearty laugh. From these anecdotes of McGlynn's pioneer life, if you were not personally acquainted with him, you might suppose him to be
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rough and quarrelsome, but this would be a mistake. He was always polite, affable, and gentle and mild as a woman in his daily intercourse with all with whom he came in contact. He was sensitive to wrong or discourtesy offered, but generous and forgiving towards all. One day, in 1850, it was rumored around that the orphans in the Market street asylum were in danger of suf- fering from want of actual necessaries. Some persons assembled ยท to plan relief; a proposition was adopted that one hundred per- sons should be called upon, asking each one to give $10; no more and no less was to be taken. It so happened that I was placed on this committee of solicitation. There was no get-off, so I started out with two others, and we soon got the thousand dollars required. When we went to John McGlynn, he heard what we said, and without replying he took from his pocket a fifty-dollar slug, a sort of coin then in circulation in San Francisco, and handed it to us. One of the committee began to get out $40 in change, but John said : "No; I want no change." "No, no," said I ; " that will not do, John. You shall not give more than any one of the rest of us. Our instructions are, not to allow any one to give over $10." " Oh, well," said he, "keep the slug ; it is a sort of a coin that is getting very unpopular here, and I do not want it, and the orphans do want it. Enter it as $10 if you will." But we entered John A. McGlynn $50 on that subscription list, and gave the "unpopular coin " to the orphans.
As, in years afterwards, poor John passed the portals to a bet- ter world, let us believe without a doubt that he found before him, in the great ledger in which is kept an account of all our actions liere below, that entry of the " unpopular coin" bright and dazzling on the credit side of his account.
v !.
CHAPTER IX.
THE THREE CLASSES OF CITIZENS-THE GENTLEMEN POLITICIANS-THE CAUSE OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEES-THE TYPICAL MINER-WELCOME ARRIVALS. INGENIOUS FURNITURE -- EARLY LAW COURTS.
From the digression in the last chapter let me go back to what I was saying of the general appearance of San Francisco and its inhabitants, on the last day of June, 1849. All, as I have said, was bustle and rush in every sort of business. There was not much talking about it ; but, on the contrary, every one had a remarkably quiet, but earnest and off-hand sort of a way of dealing that was fascinating to one engaged in trade. You made up your mind, after looking around for two or three days, that the immigration to California was dividing itself into three classes-first, the earnest, industrious workers, who had the will, and would find the way, to accomplish success in their new homes. This class comprised at least four-fifths of the American immigrants, and perhaps as large a share of the immigrants from other lands. The American population at this time seemed to outnumber all others twenty to one. The next class that at- tracted your attention was a class of idle loungers around the gambling saloons-fellows who came to California with an idea that they could get gold without working for it. They never had worked in their lives, and would rather starve than do it now. This class did not amount to ten per cent. of the immi- grants, but was large enough to breed terrible mischief in the near future. There was then a third class, composed, perhaps, of ten per cent. more of the immigrants. They were gentlemen politicians. They had been politicians in their own homes, but had there run themselves out, and now came to California to make a new beginning, to take a new start, as it were. Out of this class grew the treasury thieves and the real estate plunder- ers of San Francisco, for the first four years of her existence as
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an American city. In making this assertion, of course I do not mean to condemn this whole class as bad men. No ; what I mean is, that, as a class, they were a bad crowd. Look over the names of the delegates to the Monterey Constitutional Conven- tion, and, though mostly good men, not one solid business man is to be found there, if you except some old-time ranchero. If you look over the names of the members of the first three Legis- latures, the same fact will appear. Look over the names of the San Francisco Board of Aldermen, for the first four years, and it is very little more than a list of her despoilers. The reason of all this is very plain. The business men were independent of politics, and despised the business, leaving it to be manipulated by the gentlemen loafers of the third class, who could not or would not make a living in any other way. This third class differed from the second class, in so far that they pretended to respectability, and held themselves high above the second class. They were educated, very polite, and sly in their movements, made great pretentions to honesty and to a self-sacrificing spirit for the public good, while their time was wholly occupied with schemes to get themselves into office, and, after they got in, with plans to rob the treasury and plunder the city generally. Take the second and third class together, and, although not one-fifth of the men of San Francisco, yet they were so numerous and made themselves so prominent, that to a stranger they seemed ten times the number that they were. These composed the crowd that the authors of the " Annals " describe, all through their book, as " the people of San Francisco." Out of this class came the " highly respectable citizens " who spent their time, night after night, at gambling tables ; out of this class come the " high dignitaries" who attended magnificent entertainments " by invitation " at disreputable houses, such as the " Annals " describe. That the authors of the " Annals " met Judges, Legis- lators and Aldermen in many carousals at such houses, I have not the least doubt, nor will any one, when it is considered that such officials, at that time, often belonged to this third class I have described, who were almost all loathsomely immoral in their lives.
Now, how was it with the business men ? Say, the other four- fifths of the people of San Francisco. I assert it as a fact, that they seldom, or never, entered a gambling saloon, except as a matter of curiosity for a few moments, once or perhaps twice.
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I say, further, that if a business man in San Francisco found any of his clerks or employees frequenting such places he at once discharged them as unsafe. The routine of business in San Francisco, at that time, was terribly fatiguing. The business day was from daylight until nine or ten o'clock at night. Not a man in business but lay down at night tired and worn out with the labors of the day. They worked like men to build up here a home for themselves. They worked not to prove false to the friends at home, who aided them in their California enterprise. They worked for the wives and children they left behind them, and strained every nerve to get into a position to be surrounded once more with those so dearly loved. Yes; hundreds and hun- dreds of these men are now known among us, or their children, and we are proud of them. But where are those who composed the second and third classes ? There is hardly one of them left; and what has become of their plunder? It has melted away in their hands, and has, like most of them, disappeared. Of course there were exceptions, as there always is, to every rule. There were some honorable men who held office in the early days in San Francisco, and so there were some precious rascals among business men; but they likewise were few. The greatest fault the business men were guilty of was that they would neither hold office themselves nor give any attention to the elections. In this way the objectionable classes managed the whole thing. It was this neglect that brought on the first and second Vigilance Committees, which in the end had such damaging influences on the prosperity of the whole State. Let me here quote for you a passage from Governor Burnett's Message to the first Legisla- ture of California, as showing his opinion of the character of the pioneers. He says:
"We have a new community to organize, a new State to build up. We have also to create and sustain a reputation in the face of the misconceptions of our character that are entertained elsewhere. But we have the most ex- cellent materials out of which to construct a great community and a great State-emigration to this country from the States cast of the Rocky Moun- tains consists of their most energetic, enterprising and intelligent population, while the timid and the idle, who have neither the energy nor the means to get here, were left to remain at home."
Governor Burnett was our first Governor under the State Constitution, and was one of the purest men that ever held pub- lic office in any country. He wrote this message while smarting 7
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under the insulting comments of the Eastern and foreign press on us here in California. The good Governor speaks nothing but what every one knows to be truth, as to the character of our pioneers; but the closing words of the paragraph caused us all to enjoy a good laugh, for the inference is, that all the people re- maining in the Eastern States were "timid," "idle," lame ducks, as it were, without money or friends.
At the tenth annual picnic of the Tuolumne Reunion Associa- tion, held at Badger's Park, this last summer, Rev. T. Hamilton, a highly esteemed clergyman, in his eloquent address on that occasion, alluded to the general character of the pioneers, and as his testimony is of the highest character, I quote a passage taken from the Call newspaper's report. He says:
"The founders of the State were, by force of circumstances, choice spirits. The distance to be traveled and the obstacles to be encountered required that they should be men of a certain degree of wealth, and full of energy and manliness. Most of them were men of education, many of them graduates of some American or European university. In his own pioneer congregation of five hundred there were no less than twenty distinguished graduates. The influence of such men was always exerted in the right direction, and consequently had a beneficial effect upon the community."
The New York Tribune, of January 26, 1849, says:
"The class of our citizens which is leaving us for this El Dorado is of the bet- ter sort-well educated, industrious and respectable-such as we regret to part with. The rowdies, whom we could well spare, cannot, as a general thing, fit themselves out for so long a voyage."
That such balls were given at houses like those described in the " Annals" was of course true, and that they were attended by judges and other office-holders, I have but little doubt; but it is utterly false to assert that the respectable business men, comprising so large a share of our community as they did, ever attended such balls, or consorted, as the " Annals " assert they did openly, with such company as the authors of the " Annals " say they met at those houses by invitation.
I recollect a difficulty growing out of an attempt at a joke in regard to one of these balls, in 1849. A young man procured an invitation to a ball of this character to be sent to a friend of his, a Mr. B., a merchant of the first respectability, who to-day is well known in San Francisco and respected by all. After the invitation was received, the young fellow took care that out- siders should know of its reception. At first it created a good
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deal of amusement at B.'s expense, but the joke was kept up a little too long, and ended in a serious quarrel, a challenge, an acceptance and a meeting. But no shots were exchanged, as friends interfered; and all ended in the young man's making an ample apology.
It is true that many lucky miners, coming to San Francisco from the interior, visited gambling saloons, lost their money, and committed excesses against decency and morality; but it is also true that hundreds and hundreds of such, coming from the mines, did their business in the city in a quiet, earnest way, without committing one act of indiscretion or losing one dollar foolishly.
To look at the returned miners in those days in San Francisco the first impression you would get was that they were all of a rough cast of men, uneducated and savage. Their uncut hair, their long beards, their red flannel shirts, with flashy red Chinese scarfs around their waists, the black leather belt be- neath the scarf, fastened with a silver buckle, to which hung the handsome six-shooter and bowie-knife, the slouched, wide- brimmed hat, the manly, bold, independent look and gait of the man as he walked along, made each one look the chief of a tribe of men you had no knowledge of before. Get into conver- sation with this man, and you will find, to your surprise, in nine cases out of ten, a refined, intelligent, educated American, de- spising the excesses of the idle and the dissipated. You will find his whole heart on his old home and those he has left there. Look up as he speaks to you of wife and children and draws from beneath his red shirt a photograph of those loved ones, and you will find him brushing away tears that have fallen on his great shaggy beard. Stand behind such a looking man in the long line from the Postoffice window, waiting for his turn to get letters. See; he takes his letters from the clerk at the win- dow, and his whole frame shakes with emotion, and, as he looks at the well known handwriting, his handkerchief is again on his face. Here are the sort of pioneers the authors of the "Annals" somehow never saw. A circumstance which occurred to myself will show how completely the miner's dress of '49 changed and disguised him.
I was busy selling goods in my store, when a miner, just such as I have described, entered, announcing that he wanted to pur- chase some clothes. I pointed to a pile of men's clothing and
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