on shore than he becomes the prey of men intent. upon earning a gratuity by doing, or professing to render, him a service. The importunities of the touters, porters, and cabmen are not only quite as tormenting as those of their brethren at Calais or Boulogne, but this bidding for employment is also in marked contrast to what prevails in other American cities. The stranger who disembarks at New York has to ask the hangers-on at the wharf to carry his luggage, and he might have long to wait before they voluntarily pressed their services upon him. It cannot be doubted that the stories which. once were true about the independence of the dwellers in San Francisco have ceased to be applicable and characteristic. At one time a new arrival is said to have offered a shabbily-dressed man a dollar to carry his bag a short distance for him. He received the reply, I will give an ounce of gold to see you carry it yourself.' The new-comer thereupon acted as his own porter, 'returned and claimed the ounce of gold, which he received, and was in addition treated to a bottle of champagne, for which his entertainer had to pay the value of another ounce. At present the tables are turned, and the supply of labour is in excess of the demand. I had not long to wait before I discovered that if certain kinds of labour were abundant, the prices

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paid for labour generally were exorbitant. payments in California are made in coin, and they are nearly as high as the corresponding payments made elsewhere in depreciated greenbacks.' A drive through the streets disenchanted me as to the fairy-like character of the city. Indeed, the streets, private houses, shops, warehouses, and hotels presented no remarkable and exceptional appearance. The journey had been made too rapidly to make the aspect of a large and populous city a thing to be beheld again with special satisfaction. Among the marvels wrought by the Pacific Railway is the comparative annihilation of ideas as to distance in the minds of those who travel by it across the continent of America. Some time elapses, after arriving at San Francisco, before the fact is fully realized that New York is three thousand and Chicago two thousand miles distant. The traveller who has come thus far thinks it but a trifle to continue his journey in the track of the setting sun, even though aware that he would have to sail for ten or twenty days before finding a haltingplace at Honolulu, or Yokohama, or Hong Kong.

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XX.

THE QUEEN CITY OF THE PACIFIC COAST.

THE Golden Gate was one of the many important discoveries made by Sir Francis Drake. He spoke eulogistically of the bay into which that opening in this rockbound coast furnished an entrance, and in token of his gratification with the surrounding country he named it New Albion. The Spaniards, however, were the first settlers in California. Till the year 1847, what is now known as San Francisco was called Yerba Buena. In like manner, Sacramento bore the name of Nueva Helvetia. Even these names are being forgotten, just as all traces of Spanish settlement are gradually dying out. When Mr. Dana came here in 1835, but a single wooden shanty occupied the site of the present city of San Francisco. As long ago as that year, and when the value of this place had not been ascertained, Mr. Dana made the following entry in the diary, which, under the title of Two Years before the Mast,' was given to the world in 1840:- If

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California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the centre of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water; the extreme fertility of its shores; the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as any in the world, and its facilities for navigation, affording the best anchoring grounds in the whole western coast of America-all fit it for a place of great importance.' This prediction deserves to be ranked with the most successful specimens of fulfilled prophecy. Ten years later the population had increased from one man to an hundred and fifty souls. According to the most recent estimate the inhabitants of San Francisco now number 170,000. This rapidity of growth is wonderful; yet it is not unexampled in the United States. Other things than the increase of the population and the enlargement of the city have made the growth of San Francisco an event without a parallel, either in America or in any other quarter of the habitable globe. Its name had become synonymous for all that was most shameless in profligacy, for all that was basest in depravity, for all that was wanton and brutal in ruffianism. In the open day men were murdered with impunity. At night the property of the citizens was at the mercy of the lawless. The scum of Polynesia, desperadoes from Australia, bullies

and blackguards from the wild State of Missouri, Spanish cut-throats from the cities of the Pacific Coast, dissolute women and reckless adventurers from the slums of Europe, congregated in San Francisco, and there plied their several avocations and followed their devious courses in defiance of the prohibitions of a law which had lost its terrors for them, and in disregard of any other check save the revolver or the bowie knife. At that time, San Francisco was one-half a brothel, and one-half a gaming hell. There came a crisis in the annals of the city when the action of the law was forcibly impeded, in order that the reign of law might be restored. As the old Romans submitted to a Dictator, so did the citizens of San Francisco temporarily and voluntarily submit to a dictatorship, under the name of a Vigilance Committee. This body discharged the fourfold functions of police, judge, jury, and executioner. A short shrift and a lofty gallows was the fate of the criminal whom they took in the act of committing robbery or murder. The remedy was strong and dangerous. But the symptoms were so threatening as to inspire fear lest what men call civilization should cease to exist, and no peril incurred in applying the remedy was comparable to the risk of allowing the disease to spread and become intensified.