Part 12 (2/2)
Sometimes these men went to the trouble of digging tunnels under the ground and into the tents of successful miners, frequently pa.s.sing through rich deposits of gold on the way. At other times they waylaid wagons and coaches coming into San Francisco from the mining camps.
History tells us of the fights which ensued, and we have all heard of the successful miners who were murdered while asleep at half-way houses, and the result of their hard toil turned to base uses and vicious purposes.
In San Francisco itself robbery and violence could not be suppressed. We have all heard of the way in which the decent element finally got together, formed special laws and executed offenders in short order. No one of course approves lynch law in the abstract, but when the circ.u.mstances of the case are taken into consideration, it is difficult to condemn very severely the men who made it possible for San Francisco to become a great and honored city.
The population of San Francisco to-day is about a third of a million. A greater portion of its growth has been during the last quarter of a century, and it was the first city in this country to lay cable conduits and adopt a system of cable cars. For several years it had practically a monopoly in this mode of street transportation, and, although electricity has since provided an even more convenient motive power, San Francisco will always be ent.i.tled to credit for the admirable missionary work it did in this direction. At the present time, almost every portion of the city and its beautiful parks can be reached easily by a system of transportation as comfortable and rapid as it is inexpensive.
Among the wonders of San Francisco must be mentioned the Palace Hotel, a structure of immense magnitude and probably two or three times as large as the average Eastern man imagines. The site of the hotel covers a s.p.a.ce of more than an acre and a half, and several million dollars were spent on this structure. Everything is magnificent, expansive, huge and ma.s.sive. The building itself is seven stories high, and in its center, forming what may be described as the grandest enclosed court in the world, is a circular s.p.a.ce 144 feet across and roofed in with gla.s.s at a great height. Carriages are driven into this enclosure, and, in the nearest approach to severe weather known in San Francisco, guests can alight practically indoors.
There are nearly 800 bed-rooms, all of them large and lofty, and the general style of architecture is more than ma.s.sive. The foundation walls are 12 feet thick, and 31,000,000 brick were used above them. The skeleton of wrought iron bands, upon which the brick and stone work is constructed, weighs more than 3,000 tons. Four artesian wells supply pure water to the house, which is not only one of the largest hotels in the world, but also one of the most complete and independent in its arrangements.
A pleasant ride of nearly four miles in length brings the rider to Golden Gate Park. The Golden Gate, from which the park takes its name, is one of the world's beauty spots, and here some of the most exquisite sunsets ever witnessed can be seen. The Gate is the entrance from the Pacific Ocean to San Francis...o...b..y, which varies in width from ten to fifteen miles. At the Gate the width is suddenly reduced to less than a mile, and hence at ebb and flow the current is very swift. Near the Gate sea lions can be seen gamboling in the surf, and the waves can be observed striking on the rocks and boulders, and sending up spray of foamy whiteness to a height of a hundred feet.
Golden Gate Park is like everything else on the Pacific Coast, immense and wonderful. It is not the largest park in the world, but it ranks amongst the most extensive. Its acreage exceeds a thousand, and it is difficult to appreciate the fact that the richly cultivated ground through which the tourist is driven has been reclaimed from the ocean, and was but once little more than a succession of sand bars and dunes.
When the reader goes to San Francisco, as we hope he will go some day, if he has not already visited it, he will be told within a few minutes of his entering the city, that he has at least reached what may be fairly termed G.o.d's country. Of the glorious climate of California he will hear much at every step, and before he has been in the city many days, he will wonder how he is to get out of it alive if he is to see but a fraction of the wonderful sights to which his attention is called.
California is frequently spoken of as the Golden State. The name California was given to the territory comprising the State and Lower California as long ago as 1510, when a Spanish novelist, either in fancy or prophecy, wrote concerning ”the great land of California, where an abundance of gold and precious stones are found.” In 1848, California proper was ceded to the United States, and in the same year the discovery of gold at Colomo put a stop to the peace and quiet which had prevailed on the fertile plains, the unexplored mountains and the attractive valleys. Shortly after, a hundred thousand men rushed into the State, and for the first few years as many as a hundred thousand miners were kept steadily at work.
It was in 1856 that the famous Vigilance Committee was formed. In the month of May of that year murderers were taken from jail and executed, the result being that the Governor declared San Francisco to be in a state of insurrection. The Vigilance Committee gained almost sovereign power, and before it disbanded in August, it had a parade in which over 5,000 armed, disciplined men took part.
Two years later, the overland mail commenced its journeys and the celebrated pony express followed in 1860. Railroads followed soon after, and instead of being a practically unknown country, several weeks'
journey from the old established cities, the lightning express has brought the Pacific so near to the Atlantic that time and s.p.a.ce seem to have been almost annihilated.
CHAPTER XIV.
BEFORE EMANc.i.p.aTION AND AFTER.
First Importation of Negro Slaves into America--The Original Abolitionists--A Colored Enthusiast and a Coward--Origin of the word ”Secession”--John Brown's Fanaticism--Uncle Tom's Cabin--Faithful unto Death--George Augustus Sala on the Negro who Lingered too long in the Mill Pond.
The American negro is such a distinct character that he cannot be overlooked in a work of this nature. Some people think he is wholly bad, and that although he occasionally a.s.sumes a virtue, he is but playing a part, and playing it but indifferently well at that. Others place him on a lofty pedestal, and magnify him into a hero and a martyr.
But the Afro-American, commonly called a ”n.i.g.g.e.r” in the South, is neither the one nor the other. He is often as worthless as the ”white trash” he so scornfully despises, and he is often all that the most exacting could expect, when his surroundings and disadvantages are taken into consideration. Physiologists tell us that man is very largely what others make him, many going so far as to say that character and disposition are three parts hereditary and one part environment. If this is so, a good deal of allowance should be made. It is less than 300 years since the first negroes were brought over to this country, and it is but little more than thirty years since slavery was abolished. Hence, from both the standpoints of descent and environment, the negro is at a great disadvantage, and he should hardly be judged by the common standard.
It was in the year 1619 that a Dutch s.h.i.+p landed a cargo of negroes from Guinea, but that was not really the first case of slavery in this country. Prior to that time paupers and criminals from the old world had voluntarily sold themselves into a species of subjection, in preference to starvation and detention in their own land; but this landing in 1619 seems to have really introduced the colored man into the labor world and market of America.
We need not trace the history of the negro as a slave at any length.
That he was occasionally abused goes without saying, but that his condition was approximately as bad as a majority of writers have attempted to prove is not so certain. It was the policy of the slave owner to get as much work out of his staff as he possibly could. He knew from experience that the powers of human endurance were necessarily limited, and that a man could not work satisfactorily when he was sick or hungry. Hence, even on the supposition that all slave owners were without feeling, it is obvious that self-interest must have impelled them to keep the negro in good health, and to prevent him from losing strength from hards.h.i.+p and want.
On some plantations the lot of the slave was a hard one, but on others there was very little complaining or cause for complaint. Thousands of slaves were better off by far than they have been subsequent to liberation, and it is a fact that speaks volumes for the much discussed and criticized slaveholders, that numbers of emanc.i.p.ated slaves refused to accept their freedom, while many more, who went away delighted at the removal of withstraint, came back of their own option very soon after, and begged to be allowed to resume the old relations.
The average negro obeys, literally obeys, the divine instruction to take no thought for the morrow. If he has a good dinner in the oven he is apt to forget for the time being that there is such a meal as supper, and he certainly does not give even a pa.s.sing thought to the fact that if he has no breakfast in the morning he will be ”powerfu' hungry.” This indifference as to the future robbed slavery of much of its hards.h.i.+p, and although every one condemns the idea in the abstract, there are many humane men and women who do not think the colored man suffered half as much as has so often and so emphatically been stated.
Abolition was advocated with much earnestness for many years prior to Lincoln's famous emanc.i.p.ation proclamation. The agitation first took tangible shape during the administration of General Jackson, a man who received more hero wors.h.i.+p than has fallen to the lot of any of his successors. To a zealous, if perhaps bigoted, Quaker belongs the credit of having started the work, by founding a newspaper, which he called the ”Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation.” William Lloyd Garrison, subsequently with ”The Liberator,” was connected with this journal, and in the first issue he announced as his programme, war to the death against slavery in every form. ”I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard,” was the announcement with which he opened the campaign, which he subsequently carried on with more conspicuous vigor than success.
Garrison handled the question of the relation between the white and colored people of the country without gloves, and his very outspoken language occasionally got him into trouble. The people who supported him were known as Abolitionists, a name which even at that early date conjured up hard feeling, and divided household against household, and family against family. Among these Garrison was regarded as a hero, and to some extent as a martyr, while the bitterness of his invective earned for him the t.i.tle of fanatic and crank from the thousands who disagreed with him, and who thought he was advocating legislation in advance of public sentiment.
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