Chapter XI: Sacramento

Sacramento is situated on the river and in the heart of the valley of the same name, about one hundred miles north-east of San Francisco. It is the second city in the State in size, population and commerce, and contains from eight to ten thousand inhabitants--being nearly one fourth as large as San Francisco. It bears to San Francisco much the same relation that Columbia does to Charleston, or Albany to New York. From two to six steamboats daily ply between the two cities, conveying passengers and merchandise; and a vast deal of heavy freight is shipped in sailing vessels, which usually make the outward and return trip in a little over a week. The banks of the river are very low, and the current moves sluggishly towards the ocean. Flood-tide ascends almost as high as this place. The country, for twenty-five miles on either side of the river, is an unbroken plain, level as a floor, and would be invaluable for agricultural purposes were it not for the great freshets of the winter and spring, and the incessant drought of the summer and fall--two serious disadvantages to the farmer. Sometimes the whole valley is completely overflowed and remains under water for two or three consecutive months, on which occasions it presents the appearance of a vast lake. Many new immigrants, who are ignorant of the freaks of California seasons, arriving here in the summer, settle in this valley, and thank their stars that they were guided to an unclaimed plat of so much promise. But when winter comes and the windows of heaven are opened, and the river rises, and the cattle are drowned and the houses swept off, and they themselves compelled to fly to the upland to save their lives, they begin to discover the gloomy fact that they have been caught in a snare.

The site of the city, so smooth and flat, would be one of the most beautiful in the world, but for the lack of sufficient elevation. For the first two or three years after its settlement the inhabitants did nothing to protect it from the floods, but afterwards, becoming tired of navigating the streets in scows and skiffs, and willing to retain some of their goods and chattels about their premises, they built a temporary levee, which has since kept them tolerably dry. It is laid out with the most perfect regularity; its blocks and streets being as uniform and methodical as the squares of a chess-board. Those streets which run from north to south have alphabetical names, beginning with A, and ending with Z. Only four of them, I, J, K and L, are popular; the others command no business whatever, and but very few dwellings are situated on them. The cross-streets, or those which run from east to west, are designated arithmetically, commencing with 1st and continuing on in regular succession. Beyond 7th street, however, there are no buildings of any importance.

At present the legislature meets in this place; but as that august body is possessed of a remarkably roving disposition, having held its sessions at four different places within the last four years, at an extra expense to the State of nearly two hundred thousand dollars, it is yet uncertain whether this will be determined upon as the permanent capital. There is no capitol or state-house, nor is it likely that California will ever be able to build one while its finances are so recklessly managed. The receipts and expenditures of the State have, from the organization of its government to the present time, been intrusted to men who, to say nothing of their dishonesty, were as ignorant of the uses of money as a prodigal minor. Consequently they have entailed a public debt upon the people of more than three millions of dollars without effecting any general improvements excepting a marine hospital. This distinguished body, which now holds its deliberations in the court-house, contains some of the most precious scamps that ever paid devotion to the god of pelf; and, were it not that I have no wish to deal in personalities, I could here mention names which are notoriously infamous all over the Atlantic States. Are such men capable of devising measures for the public weal, or fit to enact laws for the commonwealth? Whether fit or unfit, they are about the only class of persons who are intrusted with the functions of legislation in this abominable land of concentrated rascality. The people of California, as a general thing, would as soon elect an honest, upright man to office, as Italian banditti would choose a moralist for their captain. No one here can be successful unless he assimilates himself to the people; he must carouse with villains, attend Sunday horse-races and bull-fights, and adapt himself to every species of depravity and dissipation.

Thus must a man discipline himself before he can receive the support and patronage of the public. It matters not what his occupation may be, whether merchant, mechanic, lawyer or doctor, he is sure to be ostracized, if he stands aloof from the vices and follies of the populace. Of course there are a few exceptions. Some men, thank heaven, have an innate abhorrence of every thing that savors of meanness or vulgarity, and they have nerve enough to cling to their principles at all times and in all places. No earthly power, even if backed by reinforcements from the infernal regions, could make them swerve from their fidelity to truth and justice. They have clearly defined ideas of right and wrong, and regulate their lives and conduct accordingly. They understand their duty, and endeavor to perform it. They see the evils of society, condemn and eschew them. There are a few such men in California, but they are discountenanced, neglected, sneered at, and flouted with opprobrious epithets. They are in bad odor; the majority is against them. The scoundrels are in power, and they have wrecked the country. To-day the State is lawless, penniless and powerless. Such is the effect of the union of two bad things--a bad people and a bad country. It was necessary in the first place, to give even a passable character to the State, that the administration of affairs should have been committed to men of pre-eminent sagacity; but instead of pursuing this policy, the common interests have been confided to political charlatans, whose actions in every instance have been detrimental to the interests of the country. As a poor client suffers in the hands of a pettifogger, or as a patient laboring under an obscure and dangerous disease, sinks under the treatment of a quack, so has this poor, sick California suffered and sunk through the agency of her knavish managers.

Leaving these wire-pulling senators and hireling assemblymen, let us take a short stroll through one or two of the principal streets. We shall not observe any thing either curious or commendable in the styles of architecture. The houses are low, rarely exceeding two stories in height, and are built mostly of wood in the very cheapest manner. All the lumber used in their construction was brought from Oregon, first to San Francisco, and thence reshipped to this place. Here and there stands a plain but uncommonly stout and substantial brick store. I have never seen any buildings in the Atlantic States equal, in durability and security against fire, to the brick structures in California. They must build them so, for reasons heretofore given. Stone is not used at all; there is none in the vicinity.

As we wend our way through the town, we pass dozens of miserable, filthy little hotels, in any of which we can procure a bad meal for a dollar. A palatable dinner in one of the more respectable hotels will cost us twice that amount. We shall be considerably amused at the queer and unique canvas signs nailed over the doors of some of the dirty little huts and shanties around us. One of the taverns announces that it has “Tip-top Accommodations for Man and Beast;” at another we can find “Good Fare, and Plenty of it;” a third promises “Rest for the Weary and Storage for Trunks;” a fourth invites us to “Come in the Inn, and take a Bite;” a fifth informs us that “Eating is done here;” a sixth assures us that “We have Rich Viands and Mellow Drinks;” while a seventh admonishes us to “Replenish the Stomach in our House.” A bar, at which all kinds of liquors, raw and mixed, pure and sophisticated, are dealt out, is attached to each of these establishments; and it is generally a greater source of profit to the proprietor than the table. Small straw cots, with coarse blankets, which have never been submitted to any cleansing process, are provided for the guests to sleep on; and when they retire, they seldom remove any of their clothes, except their coats, and sometimes not even those. In the morning, when they rise to perform their ablutions, a single wash-pan answers for all, and one towel, redolent of a week’s wiping, serves every guest.

More than two-thirds of the population of the northern part of the State lay in their supplies of provisions, clothing and mining implements at this place; and we shall notice several teams and pack-trains in the streets, loading and preparing to start on their journey. Mules and oxen are chiefly used, though for hauling short distances over good roads horses are employed. Some of the more remote mining districts, say two hundred miles from this place, are so rugged and mountainous that it is impossible to reach them with wagons or other vehicles, and the only means of transporting merchandise is upon the backs of mules. These hybrids, unamiable as is their appearance, are truly valuable for this purpose; they carry ponderous burdens, walk with ease upon the brink of a precipice, and can be kept in good serviceable condition by provender on which a horse would starve. After making a few trips they become very tractable, and it requires only four or five men to manage fifty or sixty of them. The packers have but little trouble with them, after strapping the loads on their backs and starting them off. They do not go abreast, but each follows closely behind another, Indian fashion; and they will travel patiently in this way from morning till night, rarely ever attempting a stampede.

Between the petty merchants who sell goods to those teamsters and muleteers, there is great rivalry and competition. I call them petty merchants because there are so many more of them than the business justifies or demands, that each one secures but a small share of the custom; and they have to resort to the most contemptible devices to pay current expenses. Indeed I do not believe half of them earn their support. The reader may think this strange, and wonder why men continue in an occupation which does not yield them a maintenance. They do not continue in it; their losses soon compel them to leave; but the departure of one victim only opens the way for the arrival of another. Their stands are immediately occupied by novices who, after the lapse of a few months, sink under the same fate that overwhelmed their luckless predecessors. Such is the routine of affairs all over the State. I have never known the time here when business was not clogged with double the number of traders it required. Ever since San Francisco and Sacramento were founded they have been overwhelmed with merchants, and this has been the case with every other city and town of any note throughout the State. In commercial circles you hear continual complaints of the dullness of the times. The merchants are always grumbling because they have nothing to do, and wondering when their business will improve. They live on the airy diet of hope; their good time is ever dancing before them, but never waits for them. It entices them on and then eludes them,--they reach after gold and find dross.

One reason why there is such an excess of business men, is, because American and European strangers, who have been led into the mistaken opinion that trading is profitable in California, are continually arriving with heavy stocks of goods, and opening new shops or going into the old ones, just vacated by those who could no longer sustain themselves under the pressure of the times. In this way the humbug is eternally nourished. As soon as one simpleton sacrifices his effects and retires, “a sadder and a wiser man,” another fool steps in and takes his place. Question the New York, Baltimore and Boston shippers concerning the result of their ventures, and they will tell a doleful story. Ask the Liverpool, Bordeaux and Hamburg consignors to show the account sales of their factors, and they will anathematize the inquirer and California in the same breath. Now and then, it is true, when the markets are low, as they sometimes are, a shipment turns out lucrative beyond anticipation; but when such a thing occurs it is a mere matter of chance, and one gainful shipment occasions scores of unprofitable ones. Dependent as the State is upon importations for all that she consumes or requires for use, it must be expected that the markets will be very fluctuating and changeable,--at any rate, it is so. The price of any article does not remain the same two weeks at a time. There is almost always a superfluity of merchandise in market; the supply is generally double the demand, and many things are sold at less than prime cost. Yet, by the time this merchandise falls into the hands of the actual consumer, it usually costs him from one to four hundred per cent. more than he would have to pay for it in the Atlantic States. The consignee will probably sell it to a speculator--the speculator to a wholesale merchant--the wholesale merchant to a jobber--the jobber to a retailer--the retailer to a muleteer, and the muleteer to the final purchaser or consumer. Or the importer may sell it to the city grocer, whose onerous rent makes it necessary for him to re-sell at an extraordinary advance on invoice rates to defray expenses. Thus the charges accruing on it, after its arrival, render it very costly.

I might cite instances of the perfidy and dishonesty of California merchants; but it would be like taking an inventory of the exact number of blades of grass in a meadow in order to get at the weeds by subtraction,--it would be easier to reverse the task. It would require less time to tell of those who have been true to their trusts. I know one man in San Francisco who received a consignment of nearly twelve thousand dollars worth of merchandise from his brother in New York. He placed it in an auction house--had it sold for what it would bring--appropriated the proceeds to his own use, and wrote back to his brother that all the goods had been destroyed by fire. His brother heard of his unfaithfulness, came on to San Francisco and reasoned with him; but could neither bring him to terms nor find law that would compel the performance of a common obligation. The defrauded brother returned home without recovering a cent of his dues. Another New Yorker consigned twenty thousand dollars worth of merchandise to two different commission houses (ten thousand to each,) with limited instructions--that is, not to sell for less than a certain sum. The factors received the goods, hurried them through the market, put the funds in their pockets, and wrote to the consignor, informing him that his ventures had been consumed by fire, and sympathizing with him in his losses! Before long, however, the shipper was made acquainted with the villainy of his agents, and applied to the courts for redress; but this was only employing a rogue to catch a rouge. After a deal of expense and delay, the case was dismissed. A whole cargo of wares and merchandise, valued at a trifle less than three hundred thousand dollars, was intrusted to another man, who disposed of it and absconded with the money.

But why detail these swindling transactions? Volumes upon volumes might be filled with accounts of the crimes and short-comings of this wretched country; but their perusal would only be productive of abhorrence and disgust. If, reader, you would know California, you must go live there. It is impossible for me to give, or for you to receive a correct impression of it on paper,--like Thomas, the unbelieving disciple, you must _see_ and _feel_ before you can be convinced.

On the night of the 2d of November, 1852, Sacramento was almost entirely destroyed by fire. Twenty-two hundred buildings, with other property, valued at ten millions of dollars, were completely reduced to ashes. The wind was blowing very hard at the time the fire commenced, and the roaring of the flames, the rapidity with which they spread, the explosions of gunpowder, as house after house was blown up, formed a scene rarely excelled in terrific grandeur. Men, women and children ran to and fro in the greatest confusion, excited almost to frenzy, in the effort to save their lives and effects. Within six hours after the fire first broke out, more than nine-tenths of the city were swept into oblivion, and the people were left to sleep on the naked earth without any shelter but the clothing they had on. Happening, too, just at the commencement of the rainy season, this conflagration was peculiarly disastrous, as thousands were deprived not only of shelter, but also of the means of securing a comfortable living. Provisions at the time were scarcer than I ever knew them before, or have known them since; and the extraordinarily high prices which they commanded almost precluded the poorer classes from buying or using them at all. Flour sold at forty-two dollars per barrel, pork at fifty-five, and other eatables in about the same ratio. Farther in the interior the times were still harder. In some of the distant mining localities flour and pork sold as high as three dollars per pound--equal to five hundred and eighty-eight dollars per barrel; and could not be had in sufficient quantities even at these rates. Many then suffered the pangs of insatiable hunger; and I have seen children crying to their parents for bread, when there was none to give them.

A California conflagration is a scene of the most awful grandeur that the mind is capable of conceiving. When fire is once communicated to the buildings, especially if it be in the dry season, when the winds rage and every thing is crisped by the sun, it does not smoulder, but blazing high in the air, and spreading far and wide, it consumes every thing within its reach, and leaves nothing behind but cinders and desolation. No one of the present day, out of California, has ever seen such pyramids of flame. One of the most beautiful sights I ever beheld was during a large fire in San Francisco. It was a moonless night, and there was nothing visible in the dark concave of heaven, save a few twinkling stars. Others were concealed by the detached masses of floating vapor which obscured them. Soon after the conflagration commenced, the brilliant illumination attracted large flocks of brant from the neighboring marshes; and as they flew hither and thither, high over the flaming element, they shone and glistened as if they had been winged balls of fire darting through the air. Had their plumage been burnished gold, they could not have been more radiant.

Before taking our final leave of Sacramento, we must not fail to get a glimpse of the Three Cent Philosopher, a Mormon polygamist, who figures conspicuously in this city as an extortionate usurer. He was born in the State of New York, near the hallowed spot where Jo Smith received his apostolic diploma. The Three Cent Philosopher does not carry so small a purse as his common appellation might seem to indicate; he is the wealthiest man in the place, and is as tenacious of his property as of his life. It is supposed that he is worth very near half a million of dollars. Though he believes in polygamy, and practices it, yet he never lives with more than one spouse at a time; to have them all around him at once would be too expensive.

When his wife goes out shopping he gives her fifty cents, and if she happens to bring back one-tenth of the amount, he takes it from her and locks it up in his safe. When he travels on a steamboat he always takes deck passage, and carries food in his pockets to avoid the extra expense of dining at the table. While passing through the streets he keeps a vigilant lookout for stray nails, old horse-shoes, pieces of bagging and other refuse, which he picks up, lugs home and deposits in his repository of odds and ends. Instead of chairs, he sits on stools and boxes of his own make; and, in place of coffee, he drinks parched barley tea or watered milk. His disposition is quite as sweet as wormwood, and his household is usually a scene of as much calm and domestic bliss as a family of tomcats. He is in the habit of bickering with his family at least once every day, and when he does so he rouses the whole neighborhood with the noise of his oaths and imprecations. In all probability he is a lineal descendant of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, for his hand is against every man and every man’s hand is against him. He is at enmity with all the world and is despised by every body. If his neighbor looks at him, he curses him, and if an acquaintance says good-morning to him, he tells him to go to h--ll. He has never been known to entertain a charitable thought towards his fellow-men, nor to speak a good word concerning his nearest relations. To sum up all, he is the extract of ill-breeding, the essence of vulgarity, and the quintessence of meanness.