One John A. McGlynn arrived without assets.  He appreciated the opportunity for ordinary teaming, and hitching California mules to the only and exceedingly decrepit wagon to be found he started in business.  Possessing a monopoly, he charged what he pleased, so that within a short time he had driving for him a New York lawyer, whom he paid a hundred and seventy-five dollars a month.  His outfit was magnificent.  When somebody joked with him about his legal talent, he replied, “The whole business of a lawyer is to know how to manage mules and asses so as to make them pay.”  When within a month plenty of wagons were imported, McGlynn had so well established himself and possessed so much character that he became ex officio the head of the industry.  He was evidently a man of great and solid sense and was looked up to as one of the leading citizens.

Every human necessity was crying out for its ordinary conveniences.  There were no streets, there were no hotels, there were no lodging-houses, there were no warehouses, there were no stores, there was no water, there was no fuel.  Any one who could improvise anything, even a bare substitute, to satisfy any of these needs, was sure of immense returns.  In addition, the populace was so busy—­so overwhelmingly busy—­with its own affairs that it literally could not spare a moment to govern itself.  The professional and daring politicians never had a clearer field.  They went to extraordinary lengths in all sorts of grafting, in the sale of public real estate, in every “shenanigan” known to skillful low-grade politicians.  Only occasionally did they go too far, as when, in addition to voting themselves salaries of six thousand dollars apiece as aldermen, they coolly voted themselves also gold medals to the value of one hundred and fifty dollars apiece “for public and extra services.”  Then the determined citizens took an hour off for the council chambers.  The medals were cast into the melting-pot.

All writers agree, in their memoirs, that the great impression left on the mind by San Francisco was its extreme busyness.  The streets were always crammed full of people running and darting in all directions.  It was, indeed, a heterogeneous mixture.  Not only did the Caucasian show himself in every extreme of costume, from the most exquisite top-hatted dandy to the red-shirted miner, but there were also to be found all the picturesque and unknown races of the earth, the Chinese, the Chileno, the Moor, the Turk, the Mexican, the Spanish, the Islander, not to speak of ordinary foreigners from Russia, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the out-of-the-way corners of Europe.  All these people had tremendous affairs to finish in the least possible time.  And every once in a while some individual on horseback would sail down the street at full speed, scattering the crowd left and right.  If any one remarked that the marauding individual should be shot, the excuse was always offered, “Oh, well, don’t mind