6

work within the city's bounds. A woollen mill is being erected, and a company has been constituted for manufacturing sugar from beet-root. Among other strange notices, I remarked a sign-board with the inscription, Coal and Ice Depôt.' Excepting for cooking purposes coal is not in great demand, while the consumption of ice is very large. As the climate is mild a supply of ice cannot be procured in the vicinity at any season of the year; consequently, the ice used must be brought from the mountain lakes, many miles away. Of churches and of both public and private schools, there are as many as the most exacting could desire. Notwithstanding the partiality of the Californians for drinks, they profess to be as proud of the character of a church-going people, and wish to be thought quite as desirous that their children should be educated as are the natives of New England itself. The press of Sacramento is a recognised power throughout the State whereof it is the capital. One newspaper, the Sacramento Daily Union, is extremely well conducted. It aspires to be independent of party, making the interests of the community at large and of the country as a whole the objects of its especial care. I understand that its circulation extends far beyond the limits of the city, and that its opinions exercise great weight throughout California. There

R

are, of course, the usual party organs and, like purely party organs in America, they are both rabid and indiscriminate upholders of their respective sides. As the seat of the State Legislature, this city has an element of importance in addition to those I have named. A new State House has just been completed. This is built on the conventional pattern of American Capitols. It has been decorated in a style of great splendour.

After all that I have said about this city, it may be a surprise to read that the number of its inhabitants does not exceed between twenty-five and thirty thousand. It is the more noteworthy, then, that it should merit so much attention. A glance at the spacious streets stretching away on all sides for long distances leads the beholder to suppose that, as the area of the city is large, the number of its citizens must be large also. The majority of the houses have gardens attached to them. Rows of stately trees line many of the streets. The vegetation is on a scale of tropical richness. The weeds appear to be shrubs, and the shrubs resemble small trees. Other pests besides weeds abound here in rank profusion. The mosquito curtains which closely surround the beds are significant tokens of the prevalence of a form of insect life with which most persons would gladly dispense.

When it is considered that not many years ago Sacramento was the haunt of the most reckless and depraved of the earth; the temporary home of men who came to dig for gold, and who lavished the gold of which they became possessed in riotous living and in the vilest profligacy, the marvel is to find how thorough has been the change, how complete the purification. The streets of Sacramento are as quiet at night as the streets of Boston. A Maine Liquor Law is unknown, drinking customs are in the ascendant, yet drunkenness is not the vice of the majority. Whereas formerly every man carried a revolver, and used it on the smallest provocation, or even out of mere wantonness of brutality, it is now the exception to go armed, and the rare exception to hear of dastardly murders having been committed either in passion or cold blood. At night the streets are ablaze with gas and guarded by vigilant policemen. The peace is strictly preserved, and the lawless stand in terror of the judges. One relic of the olden times still survives. Gaming, the miner's favourite pastime, flourishes in defiance of the law, or, perhaps, with the connivance of the authorities. It is true that the gaming hells are not places of resort into which the stranger is allured by publicity, or which the passer by, if uninitiated, can detect without diffi

culty. A thin veil of mystery surrounds them. But the secret is one which everybody can fathom at the cost of a drink. All the bar-keepers can point out where the hells are situated, and can generally tell, moreover, which of them is honestly conducted, and which is a den of sharpers. Nor is the entrance into any one of them attended with much trouble. The Cerberus at the door is easily propitiated. The game played is 'Faro,' a game which was the delight of English gamesters a century ago. In the United States the operation of staking one's money in a gaming hell is called Fighting the Tiger.' I witnessed the ceremony for the first time at Sacramento. Though the name of the game played is different, yet the result is identical with that which follows when money is staked at Baden-Baden or Homburg. As I was informed that the same spectacle of Fighting the Tiger' might be witnessed on a grander scale at San Francisco, I shall defer my account of the exhibition till after visiting the chief and the most renowned among Californian cities.

245

XIX.

SACRAMENTO CITY TO THE GOLDEN GATE.

THE western terminus of the Central Pacific Rail way is at Sacramento. This city occupies the place at one end of the line which Chicago does at the other. Just as several routes lead from New York to Chicago, so are there more routes than one between Sacramento and San Francisco. For the third time is the traveller embarrassed by variety. He may select one out of two railways, or he may elect to take the steamer. His ticket gives him the option of a land or water journey. The difference in time is trifling. As nothing worth speaking of was gained by continuing my journey by rail, I decided upon completing it by water. Besides, I could return by train, and thus see more of the country than if, on both occasions, I had traversed the same route.

The California Steam Navigation Company's steamer leaves Sacramento at two in the afternoon, arriving at San Francisco at ten o'clock the same