USA > California > A picture of pioneer times in California, illustrated with anecdotes and stores taken from real life > Part 6
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Sixth. That all, " from the minister of religion to the boot- black," gambled, drank and took part openly in every excess. That for the first four years after the gold discovery, including 1852, all, with hardly one exception, joined in one general de- bauch, openly attending, without an attempt at concealment, lewd fancy balls and entertainments given by invitation in houses of ill-fame.
The authors, in solemn earnestness, claim it as a virtue, and the only redeeming one of our people of San Francisco, that they were not hypocrites, as the peoples of other countries, they as- sert, are, because we openly and without shame acknowledged
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that we were indulging in every devilish excess that money could procure. Yes; and that "even the family man loved San Fran- cisco with her brave wickedness and splendid folly." As if wickedness could be brave, or folly splendid. The one, in truth, belongs to the cowardly sneak, and the other to the con- temptible fool.
The "Annals" try to make this picture they draw of a four years' debauch in San Francisco look full of wild, charming de- lights, and they grow perfectly enthusiastic over it, as they ex- claim: " Happy the man who can look back to his share in these scenes of excesses. He will be an oracle to admiring neighbors."
Read the following quotations from the "Annals," and judge if I misstate the position of the authors as to our moral status in the pioneer years of '49, '50, '51, '52, '53 and '54. Read the quotations from pages 364, 365 and 423 of the "Annals," and it will be seen that they are unwilling to admit of any change for the better as to private morals. I have examined the book carefully, and I fail to find, from cover to cover, one un- qualified admission that there were any virtuous women or good, industrious wives in San Francisco in those years, or one man worthy of a virtuous wife in all that time. On pages 134 and 135 they say :
" These astonishing circumstances soon gathered into California (in 1849) a mixed population of nearly a quarter of a million of the wildest, bravest, most intelligent, yet most reckless and perhaps dangerous beings ever before collected into one small district of country. Gold, and the pleasures that gold could bring, had allured them to the scene. * * ₭ Rich or poor, fortunate or the reverse, in their search for gold, they were almost equally dangerous members of the community. * *
* The gaming table, women and drink were certain to produce a prolific crop of vice, crime and all social disorders.
A legal Constitution could alone save California. Proba- bly Congress at a distance was not sufficiently alive to the present need of adequate measures being instantly taken to remedy the alarming state of things described. *
* * At any rate, the most honest, intel- ligent and influential persons of California believed that they could wait no longer."
From pages 216 and 217:
" Gambling saloons glittered like fairy palaces-like them, suddenly sprung into existence, studding nearly all sides of the Plaza and every street in its neighborhood. As if intoxicating drinks from the well plenished and splendid bar they contained were insufficient to gild the same, music added its loudest, if not its sweetest charms, and all was mad, feverish mirth, where
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fortunes were lost and won upon the green cloth in the twinkling of an eye. All classes gambled in those days, from the starched white neck-clothed, professor of religion to the veriest black rascal that earned a dollar from blackening massa's boots. Nobody had leisure to think even for a moment of his occu- pation, and how it was viewed in Christian lands. The heated brain was never allowed to get cool while a bit of eoin or dust was left. These saloons, therefore, were crowded night and day by the impatient revelers, who never could satiate themselves with excitement, nor get rid too soon of their golden heaps. ¥ * + The very thought of that wondrous time is an electric spark that fires into one great flame all our fancies, passions and experiences of the fall and of the eventful year 1849."
" The remembrance of those days comes across us like the delirium of fever; we are caught by it before we are aware." * *
" Happy the man who can tell of these things which he saw, and, perhaps, himself did, at San Francisco at that time. He shall be an oracle to admir- ing neighbors."
Speaking of the close of 1849, they say on page 244 :
" There was no such thing as a home to be found, scarcely even a proper house could be seen."
On pages 248, 249 and 250, they tell us :
"Such places were accordingly crowded with a motley crew, who drank, swore and gamed to their hearts' content. Everybody did so ; and that cir- cumstance was a sufficient excuse, if one were needed, to the neophyte in de- bauchery. To vary amusements, occasionally a fancy dress ball, or mas- querade, would be announced at a high price. There the most extraordinary scenes were exhibited, as might have been expected where the actors and dancers were chiefly hot-headed young men, flush of money and half frantic with excitement and lewd girls, freed from the necessity of all moral re- straint." *
* * "Monté, faro, roulette, rondo, rouge-et-noir and vingt-un, were the games chiefly played. In the larger saloons, beautiful and well dressed women dealt out the cards, or turned the roulette wheel, while lascivious pictures hung on the walls. A band of music and number- less blazing lamps gave animation and a feeling of joyous rapture to the scene."
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*
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* * * * * *
" Gaming became a regular business, and those who followed it profession- ally were really among the richest, most talented and influential citizens of the town." * * " The sight of such treasures, the occasional suc- * cess of players, the music, the bustle, heat, drink, greed and deviltry, all combined to encourage play to an extent limited only by the great wealth of the community. Judges and clergymen, physicians and advocates, merchants and clerks, contractors, shopkeepers, tradesmen, mechanics, and laborers, min- ers and farmers, all adventurers in their kind -- every one elbowed his way to the gaming table, and unblushingly threw down his gold or silver stake."
An admission on page 251, which is worse than no admission :
" There were exceptions, indeed, and some men scorned to enter a gam-
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bling saloon, or touch a card, but these were too few comparatively to be spec. ially noticed."
On page 300, of the year 1850, they say :
" Perhaps two thousand females, many of whom were of base character, and loose practices, were also added this year to the permanent population."
On page 357 (in 1851) :
"Females were very few in proportion to the whole number of inhabitants, although they were beginning to increase more rapidly. A very large por- tion of the female population continued to be of a loose character."
Pages 364-65 :
" Balls and convivial parties of the most brilliant character were constant- ly taking place. The great number of flourishing women of pleasure, par- ticularly French, mightily encouraged this universal holiday, and gave ease, taste and sprightly elegance to the manners of the town." * * # *
" It would be hard indeed for its hot-blooded and venturous population if they did not make the treasures within their grasp minister to every enjoyment that youth and sanguine constitutions could crave." * * * *
" During the disturbed times in the early part of 1851, when nobody was safe from the assaults of desperadoes, even in the public streets or in his own dwelling, the practice of wearing deadly weapons became still more common. These were often used, though not so much against the robber and assassin as upon the old friend or acquaintance or the stranger, when drink and scandal, time and circumstances had converted them into supposed enemies." * * * * * *
" The general population of San Francisco in 1852, with shame it must be confessed, in those days-as is STILL the case in 1854, to a considerable extent-drank largely of intoxicating liquors. A great many tippled at times, and quite as many swore lustily. They are an adventurous people, and their enjoyments are all of an exciting kind. They are bold and reck- less, from the style of the place and the nature both of business and amuse- ment. New-comers fall naturally into the same character."
Page 368, of the year 1851:
" Balls, masquerades and concerts, gambling saloons, visits to frail women -who have always been very numerous and gay in San Francisco-and an occasional lecture, filled up the measure of evening amusement. * + It may be said, at the same time, that the foreign population were generally an orderly, obedient and useful class of the community. The Chinese might have, perhaps, proved an exception."
Of the close of the year 1852, page 399, they say:
" There is a sad recklessness of conduct and carelessness of life among the people of California, and nearly all the inhabitants of San Francisco, what- ever be their native country, or their original pacific disposition, share in the same hasty, wild character and feeling."
A flattering mention of women, on page 417:
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"Stylishly dressed and often lovely women were constantly seen in fine weather, promenading the principal streets and idling their time (which they knew not how otherwise to ' kill') and spending somebody's money in foolish shopping, just as is the custom with the most virtuous dames in the great cities on both sides of the Atlantic."
Of 1852 they tell us on pages 423-24-25:
" No important change had occurred in the social or moral condition of San Francisco during 1852, and the characteristics of the people which were noticed in our review of the previous year still existed. The old dizzy round of business and pleasure continued. There were not only more people, greater wealth, finer houses, more shops and stores, more work, trade and profits, more places of dissipation and amusement, more tippling and swear- ing, more drunkenness and personal outrages, nearly as much public gam- bling and more private play. There were also a few more modest women, and many more of another class. * * *
Then there were more churches, more moral lectures and religious publica- tions, more Sabbath and day schools, and, too, more of everything that was beautiful and bad. More vice, debauchery and folly, and, perhaps, also a little more real religion, and sometimes a deal of outward decency. * * * The majority, however, of the first settlers had faith in the place. They relished its excitements as well of business as of pleasure; they had no family or fond ties elsewhere, or these had been long rudely broken, and so they ad- hered to San Francisco." * * * *
"A few years here make one old in sensation, thought and experience- changes his sentiments, and he begins to like the town and people for their own sake. The vices and follies, the general mode of living that frightened and shocked him at first, seem natural to the climate, and after all are by no means so VERY DISAGREEABLE. * * The scum and froth of its strange mixture of peoples, of its many scoundrels, rowdies and great men, loose women, sharpers and few honest folk, are still all that is visible. The current of its daily life is muddy and defiled by the wild effervescence of these un- ruly spirits."
Page 452 (in 1853):
" A great portion of the community still gamble-the lower classes in public, and the upper, or richer, classes in private."
Pages 500 and 501:
"As we have said, during 1853 most of the moral, intelligent and social characteristics of the inhabitants of San Francisco were nearly as described in the reviews of previous years. The old hard labor and wild delights, jobberies, official and political corruption, thefts, robberies and violent assaults, murders, duels and suicides, gambling, drinking and gen- eral extravagance and dissipation. *
* * They had wealth at command, and all the passions of youth were burning within them. They often, there- fore, outraged public decency; yet, somehow, the oldest residents and the very family men loved the place, with all its brave wickedness and splendid folly."
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Page 502 (in 1854):
"The cards are often still dealt out and the wheels turned, or dice thrown, by beautiful women, well skilled in the arts calculated to allure, betray and ruin the unfortunate men who become their too willing victims. * * * The keepers are wealthy men, and move in the better social circles of the town."
Now let us hear the authors ventilate their ideas of morality on this same page and the next, 503:
" Though there be much vice in San Francisco, one virtue-though perhaps a negative one-the citizens at least have; they are not hypocrites, who pre- tend to high qualities which they do not possess. In great cities of the old world, or it may be even in those of the pseudo-righteous New England States, there may be quite as much crime and vice committed as in San Francisco, only the customs of the former places throw a decent shade over the grosser, viler aspects. The criminal, the fool and the voluptuary are not allowed to boast, directly or indirectly, of their bad, base or foolish deeds, as is so often done in California. Yet these deeds are none the less blamable on that account; nor, perhaps, are our citizens to be more to blame because they often seek not to disguise their faults. Many things that are considered morally and socially wrong by others at a distance are not so viewed by San Franciscans when done among themselves. * * And if San Franciscans conscientiously think that their wild and pleasant life is not so very, very wrong, neither is it so really and truly wrong as the Puritanic and affectedly virtuous people of Maine-liquor prohibition and of foreign lands would fain believe. * * * It is difficult for any woman, how- ever pure, to preserve an unblemished reputation in a community like San Francisco."
The authors grow enthusiastic over the picture of our wick- edness they have drawn, and on pages 508 and 509 they hold forth thus:
" The crime, violence, vice, folly, brutal desires and ruinous habits-the general hell (not to talk profanely) of the place and people-these things, and many of a like saddening or triumphant nature, filled the mind of the moralizing ' forty-niner.' If these pioneers-and like them every later ad- venturer to California, may think and feel, for all have contributed some- thing to the work-lent themselves to the enthusiasm and fancy of the moment, they might be tempted with the Eastern King to proudly exclaim, and as truly: 'Is not this great Babylon that I have built, for the house of the Kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty.' * The vagabonds and scoundrels of foreign lands, and those, too, of the Federal Union, were loosed upon the city. Robbers, incendia- ries and murderers, political plunderers, faithless ' fathers ' and officials, law- less squatters, daring and organized criminals of every description, all the worst moral enemies of other societies concentrating here."
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Now the authors, in their enthusiasm, draw fancy scenes to astonish their readers. I quote from pages 665-6-7-8-9:
"Perhaps never in this world's history has there been exhibited such a va- riety and mixture of life scenes within the same extent and among an equal number of people, as in San Francisco for the two or three years succeeding the discovery of gold." * * * * "Away from Law, away from publie opinion, away from the restraints of home, half wild with the posses- sion of sudden and unaccustomed wealth, 'on with the dance, let joy be unconfined" seemed the motto best suited to the conduet of a large portion of the people. The Puritan became a gambler; the boy taught to consider dancing a sin soon found his way to masked-balls; monte became as familiar as the communion, and the catechism was forgotten while the champagne popped, sparkled and excited. At first it was a society composed almost exclusively of males; and, as a natural and inevitable consequence, men deteriorated. Excitement was sought in such sources as could be found. The gaming-table, with its cards and diee; the bar, with its brandy-smashes and intoxication."
* * * "But soon women began to join the anomalous crowd. Then a new pleasure of society appeared. Then reason tottered and passion ran riot. The allurements of the esprian contested the scepter with the faro banks. Champagne at ten dollars a bottle sold as readily in certain locali- ties, as did brandy at fifty-cents a glass in the saloon. Men suddenly rich squandered more in a night than until within a few months they had been able to earn or to possess in years. Dust was plentier than pleasure; pleas- ure more enticing than virtue; fortune was the horse, youth in the saddle; dissipation the track, and desire the spur. Let none wonder that the time was the best ever made. Naturally enough, masked-balls soon came in the train of women, wine and gold. Many of these ball-rooms were soon dedi- cated to the service of Terpsichore, Cupid and Momus; and it must be con- fessed also that Bacchus shared no trifling portion in those devotions. Im- agine a vast hall, nearly one hundred feet square, with a bar of fifty feet in length, built with an eye to tasteful architecture, and with a hand in the pocket, glittering in front with gold leaf and in the rear supported by a bat- talion of cut-glass decanters, colored glass ornamental articles, a golden eagle perched above the stock of liquors and wines-the American cannot drink a cock-tail comfortably unless the 'star spangled banner' float above, and the national eagle look with at least a glass eye into his potation; in the center a piece of machinery, exhibiting the sea in motion, tossing a laboring ship upon its bosom ; a water-mill in action; a train of ears passing a bridge; and a deer- chase, hounds horsemen and game, all in pursuit, or flight. Opposite, a full band, crowding every nook of the room with sweet echoes, marches, cotil- lions, mazurkas, gallopades, waltzes. On the third side a cake and a coffee- stand; and behind it a fair face, limber tongue, busy hands, coining dust from thirst, gallantry and dissipation."
"It is dark, the hour nine; the rain dripples outside and the quaker-grey outdoors, wet, chill, mud, gloom of the rainy season, drive the lonesome, the hilarious and the dissipated to the door where the ticket-taker admits the pleasure-seeker, who has deposited his umbrella in the general depot for
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those movable roofs, and been relieved by a policeman of any dangerous weapon-silver and gold excepted-which may accompany his person. By the private entrance come the maskers, male and female. The Spanish ban- dit with his high tapering hat ornamented with ribbons; the Gipsy with her basket and cards; the Bloomer, beautiful in short skirts and satin-covered extremities; the ardent young militaire with a borrowed uniform and sparso moustache; which requires like swarming bees the assistance of a clattering tin kettle to congregate the scattering portions; the Swiss ballad-singers, with their hurdy-gurdy and tambourine; the flaunting cyprian, not veiled by domino or mask; and the curious, but respectable lady, hidden by cloak and false visage. There is the Frenchman, in fantastical dress; a Gallic Count imitating the Yankee; the Yankee affecting 'Aunty Vermont;' and men, already feeling the force of their libations, affecting sobriety."
"Now the band commences, the bow is drawn, the breath blown, and domino and mask are whisked about into the midst of the dizzy maze by the Turk, who has forgotten his cimeter; the Pole, who has nothing of Kos- ciusko or Poniatowski except the tall cap, etc .; the Vermonter imitating a courtier of Charles II, and a Red Republican affecting Silsbe or Dan Mar - ble. Away they whirl through the waltz, or crash along the mazurka or dash away promiscuously in the gallopade. Where there are no masks exer- cise brings no new rose tint nor crimson to the soft cheek-the rouge or car- mine is too thick for that. The music draws to a close, and ends with a grand flourish. Off to the bar and coffee-stand go the maskers, the gentlemen to treat, the others to be treated. So a few hours wear away, The potatious begin to operate, the violent seek rencontres, old scores are to be settled and new quarrels commenced. Jealousy's eyes take a greener tinge from the bot- tle imp, and woman, forgetting her last prerogative, gentleness, joins the ring and gives point and effect to feminine oaths, by the use of feminine nails. Gradually the room is thinned, the first departing being careful to select the finest umbrellas, and when daylight comes it finds the usual characteristics of such 'banquet hall deserted.' Such is a slight description of the 'California Exchange' in the height of its ball-day glories, where in one night thous- ands of dollars were taken for tickets, and thousands at the bar for drinks. Another scene. See yonder house. Its curtains are of the purest white lace embroidered, and crimson damask. Go in. All the fixtures are of a keep- ing most expensive, most voluptuous, most gorgeous, the favorite ones with the same class of humanity, whose dress and decorations have made so significant, ever since the name of their city and trade 'Babylon.' It is a soiree night. The 'lady' of the establishment has sent most polite invita- tions, got up on the finest and most beautiful embossed note paper to all the principal gentlemen of the city, including collector of the port, mayor, alder- men, judges of the county and members of the legislature. A splendid band of music is in attendance. Away over the Turkey or Brussels carpet whirls the politician with some sparkling beauty, as fair as frail, and the judge joins in and enjoys the dance in company with the beautiful but lost beings whom to-morrow he may send to the house of correction. Everything is con- ducted with the utmost propriety. Not an unbecoming word is heard. Not
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an objectionable action seen. The girls are on their good behavior, and are proud to move and act and appear as ladies. Did you not know you would not suspect that you were in one of those dreadful places so vividly de- scribed by Solomon, and were it not for the great proportion of beauty present, you might suppose yourself in a salon of upper-tendom. But the dance is over; now for the supper table. Everything within the bounds of the market and the skill of the cook and confectioner is before you. Opposite, and by your side, that which nor cook nor confectioner's skill have made what they are-cheeks where the ravages of dissipation have been skillfully hidden, and eyes with pristine brilliancy undimmed, or even heightened by the spirit of the recent champagne; and here the illusion fades. The cham- pagne alone is paid for. The soirée has cost the mistress one thousand dol- lars, and at the supper and during the night she sells twelve dozen of champagne at ten dollars a bottle ! This is a literal fact, not an idea being a draft upon the imagination or decorated with the colors of fancy. No loaf_ ers present but the male ton; vice hides herself for the occasion, and staid dignity bends from its position to twine a few flowers of social pleasure around the heads and breasts of these poor outcasts of society."
Page 670. The man all right, the woman a hypocrite:
" Another picture. It is Sunday afternoon. Service is over at church and ' meeting house.' The Christian who went to worship, and the belle whose desire was to excite admiration, have returned home. The one to re- flect or to read, the other to calculate possible triumphs or to coquette."
On page 727 we find this foolish misrepresentation :
"Owing to his removal from office, and the impossibility of deciding upon his future course, but chiefly because of the disordered state of the city, occasioned by the outrages of the 'Hounds,' rendering it actually unsafe for any lady to re- side there, Colonel Geary determined to let his family remain here no longer, but sent back to Pennsylvania, in company with long tried friends, his wife and two babes, the youngest of whom had been born in April, and was the first male child, of purely American parents, that was born in San Francisco after the cession of California to the United States."
In puffing John W. Geary, on page 719, the authors utter the following malicious, wholesale slander of the Pioneers:
" Who, then, would have expected to have found a community so lawless and reckless, so passion-actuated and fancy-governed, so wild, desperate and daring, so pregnant with vices and so barren of virtues, as it [San Fran- cisco ] was described in the history of nations, the first to exhibit to centuries of civilized life a lesson of thankfulness for good done, of forbearance and sacrifice of personal desires, of zeal and earnestness in rewarding real merit?"
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