Chapter XXVII
The Stockton Stage—the Plains—san Francisco—its Progress—improvement in Style of Living—female Influence—extravagance—first Settlement of California—effective Population—americans as Colonists—english in California—modern Discoveries of Gold—their Consequences.
After a month or two spent on the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, and in the more sparsely populated section of country lying still farther south, I returned to Sonora, on my way to San Francisco.
Here I took the stage for Stockton—a large open waggon, drawn by five horses, three leaders abreast. We were well ballasted with about a dozen passengers, the most amusing of whom was a hard dried-up man, dressed in a greasy old leathern hunting-shirt, and inexpressibles to match, all covered with tags and fringes, and clasping in his hand a long rifle, which had probably been his bosom-friend all his life. He took an early opportunity of informing us all that he was from Arkansas; that he came to “Calaforny” across the plains, and having been successful in the diggings, he was now on his way home. He was like a schoolboy going home for the holidays, so delighted was he with the prospect before him. It seemed to surprise him very much that all the rest of the party were not also bound for Arkansas, and he evidently looked upon us, in consequence, with a degree of compassionate interest, as much less fortunate mortals, and very much to be pitied.
We started at four o’clock in the morning, so as to accomplish the sixty or seventy miles to Stockton before the departure of the San Francisco steamer. The first ten or twelve miles of our journey were consequently performed in the dark, but that did not affect our speed; the road was good, and it was only in crossing the hollows between the hills that the navigation was difficult; for in such places the diggings had frequently encroached so much on the road as to leave only sufficient space for a waggon to pass between the miners’ excavations.
We drove about thirty miles before we were quite out of the mining regions. The country, however, became gradually less mountainous, and more suitable for cultivation, and every half-mile or so we passed a house by the roadside, with ploughed fields around it, and whose occupant combined farming with tavern-keeping. This was all very pleasant travelling, but the most wretched part of the journey was when we reached the plains. The earth was scorched and baked, the heat was more oppressive than in the mountains, and for about thirty miles we moved along enveloped in a cloud of dust, which soaked into one’s clothes and hair and skin as if it had been a liquid substance. On our arrival in Stockton we were of a uniform colour all over—all identity of person was lost as much as in a party of chimney-sweeps; but fortunately the steamer did not start for an hour, so I had time to take a bath, and make myself look somewhat like a white man before going on board.
The Stockton steamboats, though not so large as those which run to Sacramento, were not inferior in speed. We steamed down the San Joaquin at about twenty miles an hour, and reached San Francisco at ten o’clock at night.
San Francisco retained now but little resemblance to what it had been in its earlier days. The same extraordinary contrasts and incongruities were not to be seen either in the people or in the appearance of the streets. Men had settled down into their proper places; the various branches of business and trade had worked for themselves their own distinct channels; and the general style of the place was very much the same as that of any flourishing commercial city.
It had increased immensely in extent, and its growth had been in all directions. The barren sandhills which surrounded the city had been graded down to an even slope, and were covered with streets of well-built houses, and skirted by populous suburbs. Four or five wide streets, more than a mile in length, built up with solid and uniform brick warehouses, stretched all along in front of the city, upon ground which had been reclaimed from the bay; and between these and the upper part of the city was the region of fashionable shops and hotels, banks and other public offices.
The large fleet of ships which for a long time, while seamen’s wages were exorbitantly high, lay idly in the harbour, was now dispersed, and all the shipping actually engaged in discharging cargo found accommodation alongside of the numerous piers which had been built out for nearly a mile into the bay. All manner of trades and manufactures were flourishing as in a place a hundred years old. Omnibuses plied upon the principal thoroughfares, and numbers of small steamboats ran to the watering-places which had sprung up on the opposite shore.
The style of life had improved with the growth of the city, and with the increased facilities of procuring servants and house-room. The ordinary conventionalities of life were observed, and public opinion exercised its wonted control over men’s conduct; for the female part of creation was so numerously represented, that births and marriages occupied a space in the daily papers larger than they require in many more populous places.
Female influence was particularly observable in the great attention men paid to their outward appearance. There was but little of the independent taste and individuality in dress of other days; all had succumbed to the sway of the goddess of fashion, and the usual style of gentleman’s dress was even more elaborate than in New York. All classes had changed, to a certain extent, in this respect. The miner, as he is seen in the mines, was not to be met with in San Francisco; he attired himself in suitable raiment in Sacramento or Stockton before venturing to show himself in the metropolis.
Gambling was decidedly on the wane. Two or three saloons were still extant, but the company to be found in them was not what it used to be. The scum of the population was there; but respectable men, with a character to lose, were chary of risking it by being seen in a public gambling-room; and, moreover, the greater domestic comfort which men enjoyed, and the usual attractions of social life, removed all excuse for frequenting such places.
Public amusements were of a high order. Biscaccianti and Catherine Hayes were giving concerts, Madame Anne Bishop was singing in English opera, and the performances at the various theatres were sustained by the most favourite actors from the Atlantic States.
Extravagant expenditure is a marked feature in San Francisco life. The same style of ostentation, however, which is practised in older countries, is unattainable in California, and in such a country would entirely fail in its effect. Extravagance, accordingly, was indulged more for the purpose of procuring tangible enjoyment than for the sake of show. Men spent their money in surrounding themselves with the best of everything, not so much for display as from due appreciation of its excellence; for there is no city of the same size or age where there is so little provincialism; the inhabitants, generally, are eminently cosmopolitan in their character, and judge of merit by the highest standard.
As yet, the influence of California upon this country is not so much felt by direct communication as through the medium of the States. A very large proportion of the English goods consumed in the country find their way there through the New York market, and in many cases in such a shape, as in articles manufactured in the States from English materials, that the actual value of the trade cannot be accurately estimated. The tide of emigration from this country to California follows very much the same course. The English are there very numerous, but those direct from England bear but an exceedingly small proportion to those from the United States, from New South Wales, and other countries; and the latter, no doubt, possessed a great advantage, for, without undervaluing the merit of English mechanics and workmen in their own particular trade, it must be allowed that the same class of Americans are less confined to one speciality, and have more general knowledge of other trades, which makes them better men to be turned adrift in a new country, where they may have to employ themselves in a hundred different ways before they find an opportunity of following the trade to which they have been brought up. An English mechanic, after a few years’ experience of a younger country, without losing any of the superiority he may possess in his own trade, becomes more fitted to compete with the rest of the world when placed in a position where that speciality is unavailable.
California has afforded the Americans their first opportunity of showing their capacity as colonists. The other States which have, of late years, been added to the Union, are not a fair criterion, for they have been created merely by the expansion of the outer circumference of civilisation, by the restlessness of the backwoodsman unaided by any other class; but the attractions offered by California were such as to draw to it a complete ready-made population of active and capable men, of every trade and profession.
The majority of men went there with the idea of digging gold, or without any definite idea of how they would employ themselves; but as the wants of a large community began to be felt, the men were already at hand capable of supplying them; and the result was, that in many professions, and in all the various branches of mechanical industry, the same degree of excellence was exhibited as is known in any part of the world.
Certainly no new country ever so rapidly advanced to the same high position as California; but it is equally true that no country ever commenced its career with such an effective population, or with the same elements of wealth to work upon. There are circumstances, however, connected with the early history of the country which may not appear to be so favourable to immediate prosperity and progress. Other new countries have been peopled by gradual accessions to an already formed centre, from which the rest of the mass received character and consistency; but in the case of California the process was much more abrupt. Thousands of men, hitherto unknown to each other, and without mutual relationship, were thrown suddenly together, unrestrained by conventional or domestic obligations, and all more intently bent than men usually are upon the one immediate object of acquiring wealth. It is to be wondered that chaos and anarchy were not at first the result of such a state of things; but such was never the case in any part of the country; and it is, no doubt, greatly owing to the large proportion of superior men among the early settlers, and to the capacity for self-government possessed by all classes of Americans, that a system of government was at once organised and maintained, and that the country was so soon entitled to rank as one of the most important States of the Union.
The consequences to the rest of the world of the gold of California it is not easy to determine, and it is not for me to enter upon the great question as to the effect on prices of an addition to the quantity of precious metals in the world of £250,000,000, which in round numbers is the estimated amount of gold and silver produced within the last eight years. It seems, however, more than probable that the present high range of prices may, to a certain extent, be caused by this immense addition to our stock of gold and silver. But the question becomes more complicated when we consider the extraordinary impetus given to commerce and manufactures by this sudden production of gold acting simultaneously with the equally expanding influence of Free Trade. The time cannot be far off when this important investigation must be entered upon with all that talent which can be brought to bear upon it. But this is the domain of philosophers, and of those whose part in life it is to do the deep-thinking for the rest of the world. I have no desire to trespass on such ground, and abstain also from fruitlessly wandering in the endless mazes of the Currency question.
There are other thoughts, however, which cannot but arise on considering the modern discoveries of gold. When we see a new country and a new home provided for our surplus population, at a time when it was most required—when a fresh supply of gold, now a necessary to civilisation, is discovered, as we were evidently and notoriously becoming so urgently in want of it, we cannot but recognise the ruling hand of Providence. And when we see the uttermost parts of the earth suddenly attracting such an immense population of enterprising, intelligent, earnest Anglo-Saxon men, forming, with a rapidity which seems miraculous, new communities and new powers such as California and Australia, we must indeed look upon this whole Golden Legend as one of the most wondrous episodes in the history of mankind.