# A La California/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
IN THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Cosmopolitanism of San Francisco.—Its Street Panoramas and Pictures and Sounds.—An Autumn Morning.—The "Barbary Coast."—The Chinese Missionary.—Factory Hands on Holiday.—Funeral of Ah Sam.—A Chinese Faction-fight.—An Equestrian Outfit.—The Poundmaster's Van.—General Stampede: its Cause and its Course.—The Pine-apple Plant.—The Passers-by.
Cosmopolitan, in the fullest acceptation of the term, above that of any other city of America, perhaps of the world, is the population of this goodly city of San Francisco, the metropolis of an empire in the near future, of the wealth and grandeur of which we of to-day have hardly yet commenced to dream. Here on the shore of the blue, illimitable Pacific, the human tides circling around the globe from east and west, from Europe and the Atlantic slope of America, from Asia, the isles of the ocean, Australia, and farthest Africa, meet and commingle with a deep, incessant roar, even as the waves from the shores of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands meet the floods from the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, at her Golden Gate, and burst in thundering surf on the frowning: rocks of Point Lobos and Point Bonita. ​One may wander far and wide over the earth without finding another such a motley crowd as that which on a pleasant evening pours in a living stream through Kearney or Montgomery Street. Natives of the soil of every State in the Union, Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen, French, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, Lapps, Fins, Portuguese, Spaniards, Mexicans, Panamenos, Chilenos, representatives from every Central and South American country, Canadians, Chinese, Japanese, and Kanakas, abound; and here and there in the throng, at wider intervals, you may at times see the supple, silent little Lascar, or Hindoo, gliding stealthily and serpent-like through the throng; or note the tall turban of the Parsee, or Persian, merchant, who is waiting for the steamer of the P. M. S. S. Co. to bear him back to the shores of Asia; or the red fez of the Turk or Algerine, as he wanders dreamily along, unconsciously lending his assistance in making up the wonderful panorama unrolling itself before you.
​It is a glorious autumn morning, when the summer trade-winds have spent their force and ceased for the season, and the winter rains have not yet commenced: Sunday, and the whole population is abroad on the streets; churchward bend the few; in search of pleasure the many. Passing along Stockton Street, we hear the strains of the organ and the voices of the choir, in the Christian temple, mingling with the babel of many tongues on the street, and the rattle and roar of fireworks, and the shrill sounds of the gong, in the courtyard of the temple of Buddha or Foh, where "the heathen in his blindness," etc., almost under its very eaves, and beneath the shadow of the cross, and turn down towards the "Barbary Coast," where thieves, murderers, prostitutes, and vagabonds from every clime beneath the sun meet and mingle on a common level, and vice, and crime, and wretchedness, and moral and physical degradation unutterable are stamped on the face of every denizen of the evil neighborhood, marking him or her as an outcast, a leper, a pariah, among the children of men.
A narrow alley, inclosed by high brick buildings cut into innumerable small tenements, and swarming with Chinese men and women of the lower class, runs through the centre of a square or block, from one street to another. This alley is a study for the student of humanity. At its southern entrance a dozen or twenty persons, all Chinese, male and female, are gathered around a box upon which stands a neatly-clad Chinaman, who holds an open book in Chinese characters in his hand, and is ​expounding the story of the Man of Sorrows, and the mystery of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the plan of salvation to the listless, indifferent audience. His manner is quiet but earnest, and to us, at first, impressive; but there is a smile of mocking incredulity, or the blank look of utter apathy, on the face of every hearer, and we find ourselves insensibly falling into the line of doubting not only that the listeners really have souls to be saved, but even that the preacher believes that they have, or in fact feels within himself any deep and abiding interest in the question one way or the other.
Farther down the alley, a party of Chinese cigar-makers and factory-operatives, on holiday, are playing a curious game of shuttlecock, catching the bat upon their heels, knees, elbows, hands, or heads, as it may chance, and keeping it bounding into the air, and from one player to another, without ever stopping or touching the ground, for half an hour at a time. The crowd of spectators of various nationalities is much larger here than around the preacher at the entrance of the alley.
But down at the lower end of the alley, near Jackson Street, the largest crowd is gathered and the greatest interest centres. Elbowing our way into the circle of spectators, we manage to gain a view of the ceremonies going on within. In the middle of the alley upon low trestles stands a richly mounted rosewood coffin; and all around it "joss sticks," or little colored wax candles, and sticks of incense, supported by slips of rattan stuck in the earth or the cracks of the planking, are burning. At the ​foot of the coffin stands a long table covered with a white cloth, and literally loaded with the materials for a Chinese feast. At the head of the table is a tall pyramid of pink and white rice-cakes, choice fruits, confectionery, gold tinsel ornaments, and flowers. Next comes a huge platter, upon which rests a hog roasted whole, and fancifully adorned, flanked by a chicken and a duck fashioned, with a strange, perverted ingenuity, into the semblance of grotesque, half-human figures, and at the lower end there is a sheep also roasted whole, with a crown of the native wool, fancifully cut and trimmed, still adorning the head. A multitude of little dishes, containing sauces and condiments, are scattered over the table as adjuncts to this feast of the dead. A tall young Chinaman, who is either priest or chief mourner,—we are in doubt which,—stands by the head of the table and directs the ceremonies. He is clad in a simple narrow robe of common unbleached white cotton sheeting, confined at the waist with a girdle of the same material, and has a strip of the same goods bound around his head. Three assistants, each similarly clad, are ranged alongside the coffin, and at intervals they kneel and bring their foreheads down to the dust, wailing forth their grief—real or simulated:the latter probably—in unison, chanting what may be a dirge, or a prayer, or a hymn of praise, in the highest key on the scale, while a band, consisting of half a dozen players on the Chinese clarionet, and its variations, one-stringed fiddle, and the indispensable, inevitable, clanging gong, standing around the head of the coffin, fill the ​air with wild, barbarous music, in which the average Caucasian ear fails to catch even the faintest understrain of genuine melody. Chinese women with painted faces, silk and satin garments, and lustrous blue-black hair, wonderfully dressed and adorned, look on and laugh and chatter like so many parrots. Chinese artisans in holiday costume smoke their cigars, and coolly comment on the ceremonies and the performers, while Americans, Europeans, and negroes look in and drop out of the crowd, the scene being too common to them to possess more than a momentary interest. A reporter, note-book in hand, climbs into a window from which he can over-look the crowd, and jots down, "Funeral of Ah Sam, boss Chinese cigar-maker, China Alley—died of consumption, induced by opium smoking," jumps down, and is off in search of something more sensational; and we follow him.
CATCHING A RUNAWAY.
​rises higher; harsh voices, pitched to their highest key, convey epithets of infamous import back and forth; there is a rush one way, and a scattering in all the others, and a lively fight has commenced. We see hats knocked off, catch glimpses of steel bars swung into the air above the heads of the excited mass, see here and there the glinting of short swords, brandished with desperate earnestness of intent, and hear the low thud, thud, thud, of the heavy bars falling on naked scalps. Then a pistol rings out sharp and clear above the din, and there is another scattering of the combatants, just as, in answer to the shrill whistles blown long and loud by outside spectators, the police arrive on the run, and knocking right and left with their heavy lignumvitae clubs and the butts of their revolvers, beat their way through the crowd and arrest the luckless devil who has just been knocked down, beaten, and shot through the shoulder, and now lies bleeding and helpless on the sidewalk, and hurry him and the witnesses away to the calaboose.
As the officers and their prisoner hurry along Kearney Street toward the City Hall, they divide the attention of the crowds on the sidewalks for the moment with a slender, black, little Mexican, with a thin, sharp face and long moustache, through which his white teeth show, and over which his dark eyes flash with a peculiar Mephistophelean effect, attired in full Spanish-American costume, broad sombrero, short, embroidered jacket, with silver buttons, wide, slashed buckskin pants, looped up with silver lacings at the sides, and long, inlaid ​Spanish spurs, which jingle like a string of little bells, riding on a fiery little pinto horse, which has the artificial paseár gait, trotting with the fore legs and galloping with the hind ones, so much prized by gay caballeros who daily ride out on the paséo in his native city of the Montezuma. The headstall is of fine braided hair, and consists of a single strap passing from the bit on either side up to the ears, where it is split to pass on both sides of those organs, to keep it from slipping off,—no forehead-band, curb-strap or throat-latch being used,—and united by a broad silver button at the top of the head. The terrible Spanish bit, at which the high-spirited little steed chafes and champs incessantly until the foam flies right and left from his quivering mouth, is plated with silver; and silver chains attach it to the long, braided hair rein, terminating in a whip, which the rider whirls carelessly around in the air as he rides gayly along with affected indifference to the sensation he is creating. The high pommel of the Spanish saddle is covered with silver; the long tapaderos, which cover and depend from the stirrups, are tipped with the same metal, and the whole saddle is elaborately embossed and ornamented. Behind the crupper is an embroidered baquerillo, with sides of llama skin with long, glossy, black wool hanging down almost to the ground. It is "an outfit" which would make a sensation in Hyde Park or the Central, and always attracts the admiring attention of strangers as it passes along the streets of San Francisco.
Early on a week-day morning you may see another of the specialties of San Francisco,—the ​poundmaster's van and its attendants,—a van with open sides, through which may be seen the heads of luckless, unlicensed dogs and goats, and occasionally a pet pig or lamb, drawn by two horses driven leisurely along by a fat and happy-looking assistant dog-pelter, by whose side sits a Mexican or native Californian half-Indian vaquero, with his long, rawhide rieta coiled ready for instant use in his hand. Beside the van rides another vaquero on horseback ready for the chase; and behind rides, on horseback, a policeman with star and baton exposed, ready to arrest anybody guilty of interfering with the operations of the dog ordinance of the city and county of San Francisco, and the statutes of the State "in such cases made and provided."
As the van jolts along over the rough cobble pavement the imprisoned canines give vent to mournful howls, on hearing which every unlicensed but "posted" dog on the street takes to his heels and flees from the neighborhood as from a pestilence, while the licensed cur, with the tax-collector's tag upon his collar, comes boldly up to the vehicle in perfect consciousness of security, and howls defiance at the persecutors of his race.
A Frenchwoman of no uncertain social status is passing along the street at the moment, with a King Charles spaniel snugly ensconced in her arms and a sprightly black-and-tan running along by her side. There is no tag on the neck of either dog, a fact which the poundmaster's assistants comprehend at a glance, and the vaquero on the driver's seat jumps down on the instant and darts toward them. The ​woman sees the peril of her pets, and attempts to catch up the black-and-tan also in her arms; but the rieta comes spinning through the air, and the fatal noose is around his neck before her hand has touched him. In the effort to grasp him as he is jerked away she drops the spaniel also, and in the fraction of a second the mounted vaquero whirls the rieta around his head and sends it straight as an arrow at the little fellow, lassoes him at the first attempt, and lands him half way into the middle of the street with the recoil of the rieta, as a boy would land a perch or chub, at the end of his line, on the bank of a stream. There is a wild outcry on the part of the woman, an indignant appeal for help to the unsympathetic bystanders, a tearful and angry dispute with the smiling driver of the van, and finally the excited woman pays over ten dollars in coin,—five dollars for each pet,—receives a mild caution not to let them be caught a second time without the license-tag on their collars, and moves hurriedly away, breathing maledictions long and loud upon the devoted heads of the poundkeeper and all his assistants and the makers of the infamous laws, which thus tear the heartstrings out of a poor woman and rob her of her hard-earned dollars.
THE POUNDMASTER'S VAN.
​feet upon the sidewalk, announce the presence of physical danger and the commencement of a general stampede. Out of Pacific Street into Kearney, with head erect, glaring eyes, and nostrils wide distended with rage, terror and fatigue, rushes a wild, longhorned, Spanish steer, which has broken away from a drove being landed at North Beach, and, Malaylike, is running a muck through the city, to the imminent peril of life and limb of every person he meets on his way. The frightened and infuriated animal dashes madly at every living object which attracts his attention, knocks down and tramples upon several persons not fleet enough to escape him, and is only prevented from goring them to death with his long, sharp horns, by the shouts and execrations of his pursuers, two swarthy, Mexican vaqueros, mounted and equipped like the poundmaster's assistant, who are all the time close upon him, endeavoring to head him off and turn him back or capture him at the first opportunity. Dashing full tilt at a passing vehicle, the steer recoils half-stunned from the shock, and in an instant the lasso, hurled by one of the vaqueros, is around his head under the horns, and the other has caught him in a similar manner by one of the hind legs. One of the vaqueros, with a deep-drawn "C-a-r-a-j-o!" swings his excited pony-steed sharply half around in one direction, the other swings his in the opposite; there is a sharp thud as each rieta straightens like a bowstring, and the steer goes down heavily in the dust. He struggles madly in the toils for an instant, but in less time than it takes to write this, or to read it, ​one of the poundmaster's assistants is by his side, throwing his rieta around him in every direction, as he twists and turns, until his limbs are securely bound like those of a fly in the web of a spider, and he lies panting, bruised, bleeding, and helpless on the pavement. Such scenes as this are now less common in San Francisco than a few years since, but they may still be witnessed occasionally, and add something to the charm of life in the Golden City.
REMINISCENCES.
​by turns, she looks first at one bystander and then at another, addressing each invariably in the wrong tongue, gesticulating wildly as she strives to express the delight which fills her heart at this sudden recalling of the memories of her childhood, and the scenes and associations which surrounded the home of her youth. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" the prejudices of race and education give way before it, and there is something of human sympathy on the face of every bystander as she moves reluctantly away, turning ever and anon for another glance at the souvenir of her native land, which, like the palm-tree in the gardens of Paris to the desert Arab, long wandering from his home, has become to her an object of adoration.