Gambling-houses were made to pay a license.  Real estate, auction sales, and other licenses were also taxed.  One of the ships in the harbor was drawn up on shore and was converted into a jail.  A district-attorney was elected, with an associate.  The whole municipal structure was still about as rudimentary as the streets into which had been thrown armfuls of brush in a rather hopeless attempt to furnish an artificial bottom.  It was a beginning, however, and men had at last turned their eyes even momentarily from their private affairs to consider the welfare of this unique society which was in the making.

CHAPTER X

ORDEAL BY FIRE

San Francisco in the early years must be considered, aside from the interest of its picturesqueness and aside from its astonishing growth, as a crucible of character.  Men had thrown off all moral responsibility.  Gambling, for example, was a respectable amusement.  People in every class of life frequented the gambling saloons openly and without thought of apology.  Men were leading a hard and vigorous life; the reactions were quick; and diversions were eagerly seized.  Decent women were absolutely lacking, and the women of the streets had as usual followed the army of invasion.  It was not considered at all out of the ordinary to frequent their company in public, and men walked with them by day to the scandal of nobody.  There was neither law nor restraint.  Most men were drunk with sudden wealth.  The battle was, as ever, to the strong.

There was every inducement to indulge the personal side of life.  As a consequence, many formed habits they could not break, spent all of their money on women and drink and gambling, ruined themselves in pocket-book and in health, returned home broken, remained sodden and hopeless tramps, or joined the criminal class.  Thousands died of cholera or pneumonia; hundreds committed suicide; but those who came through formed the basis of a race remarkable today for its strength, resourcefulness, and optimism.  Characters solid at bottom soon come to the inevitable reaction.  They were the forefathers of a race of people which is certainly different from the inhabitants of any other portion of the country.

The first public test came with the earliest of the big fires that, within the short space of eighteen months, six times burned San Francisco to the ground.  This fire occurred on December 4, 1849.  It was customary in the saloons to give negroes a free drink and tell them not to come again.  One did come again to Dennison’s; he was flogged, and knocked over a lamp.  Thus there started a conflagration that consumed over a million dollars’ worth of property.  The valuable part of the property, it must be confessed, was in the form of goods, is the light canvas and wooden shacks were of little worth.  Possibly the fire consumed enough germs and germ-breeding dirt to pay partially for itself.  Before the ashes had cooled, the enterprising real estate owners were back reerecting the destroyed structures.