Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-06
From the Pacific Coast.
san FrancisO and its PecuIiariIies-The
Goat Island ''Grab'''-GIimpse of the
MetrOPOIis-The Money Mart of the City
California Street-McrchRnI's Exchange
Pioneers.
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DAILY sPY.l


GRAND HOTEL, SAN Francisco,
June 20, 1872.
In many of its features this is unlike any other
American city. 1t is as peculiar as it is remote
and isolated from the chief centers of population
aud wealth in the eastern states. Visitors from
from beyond the mountains and plains-lrom
the Atlantic seaboard, and even from Europe
approach it with mingled feelings of admira-
ton and curiosity. Some expect one thing
some another of this metropolis of the occident.
So many and strange stories and accounts have
come of it during the last twenty ycars-since
hurrying and anxious feet began to tread its
feet in search of sudden and large gains-that
every new conner is on the alert for the strange,
quaint aud queer. So far as we have herad ex-
pressions of sentiment concerning it, all are hap
PLY disapponted-saying, generally, "Well,
this is finer and better than | anticipated"
"These pioneers have accomplished much in the
last two decades"
Unlike any other place of equal railway faci-
tiles, it has only one railway station in its limits.
and that is that of the Southern Pacific" run
ming near the coast line toward the southern
counties. The chief station is in Oakland, on
the east side of San Francisco Bay, opposite the
city which is on the west.
1t sustains the same relation TO it as does
Jersey City TO New York, where cars are taken
for Philadelphia and Washington, excepting
that those two places at the mouth of the Hud-
son are only about mile apart, while these are
about six miles distant, the beautiful bay lying
between, with the recently notorious Goat
IslanP midway between them, like a mediator
between contending pugilists, each striving for
commercial ascendancy. When the railway
over the steep, craggy and snowy Sierras was
proposed by Stanford, Huntington and Hopkins,
the railway trumvirate of the Pacific, San Fran
cisco laughed and ieered-Said it was nonsense
TO project it aud impossible to build it. Had it
had its own way, the iron horse would not have
strobe over summit and valley in the next five
years, and San Francisco would have been u
mouths journey from New York instead of a
weeks.
There has been no good feeling since between
the two corporations, and hence every move of
the transportation company has been watched
with suspicion and jealousy by the "stand stip'
municipal corporation. Remember that this
place is composed chiefly of persons who came
round the Horn and across the isthmus, when
gold hunting was at fever heat-made money
here by speculations of any and every sort, con-
cluded that San FranciSco.waS theirs for their
special purposes, and the entire coast, from the
Russian possessions to Mexico, belonged to the
city, and any one proposing to dispute their
supremacy and establish system of fair play
was an interloper and intermeddler and
better mind his own business. If
few greedy men, by complete monop-
oily of trade, could make hundred per
cent profit on all transactions, no matter wheth-
or anybody beside made a living or not, or
whether any other city grew and prospered
This ancient feeling and feud continues, the few
monopoliSts managing TO make big noise and
tumut by talking about "jobs, swindles and
schemes" in real "dog in the manger" STYLE
This is the source and origin of the opposition to
the Goat island proposition, which time will
show is the only thing that will ever give impe
tus and progress to this lone city by the sea
The railroad came just in time to save its pros
perity when mining fevers died out, and this
island terminus comes in its time of need TO
Keep the business here and prevent its going
elsewhere. Yet with eyes scaled with preiu-
dice, and hide bound with selfish, ignorant
egotism, these monopolists of the mart predict
ruin to the place because new element comes
in to compete with them This is the phil0so-
ply and explanation OF the TRADE and abuse
with which the columns of some newspapers
here have teemed of late, and the high sounding
manifestoes of the committee of one hundred,
chosen in the interest of the local oligarchs des-
perate to retain their selfish clutch upon the
arteries Of commerce. The overland route seeks
simply and solely 10 get permanent landing
place on the firm bed of the island for its freight
and passengers, and not the inconyenient, ex-
pensve and artificial one, built on piles in the
water at the end of a pier two miles in length
from the Oakland shore, where rail carriage
stops and the ferry begins.
The estimated cost of bridge from the island
TO the city is $4,000 900, which Is undoubtedly
below the actual expense. The interest on this
sum would more than maintain fleet of ferry
boats ample for all traffic. The company is
constructing depots and all the necessary ac-
compartments fer an charging business on the
water front, and manilests every intent to make
this, and not Oakland its terminus BY and by
the furry will spend itself in futile efforts, and
die away to give place to the conviction that
the plans of the trnmvrate laid the founda-
tions of a city and commerce compared with
which the past is as a pigmy TO Hercules-as
the trickling fountains TO the broad, sweeping
and steady cnrrent.
While the moneyed opposition have been
To- tI,n;
sinking mortgagors at two or three per cent. a
month, these three men, with their coworkers-
have been opening an easy gateway for immi-
grafton from the crowded East and from Eu-
rope; have put the credit OF the state and of
business upon basis that invites new capital
TO join with the Immigrants in settling these
fertile and landless acres-aud giving to Cali
lorna that which is of most value TO tia
thrllty, outerprising agricultural population.
The crazy days of mining have. fortunately
gone-never TO return-and a higher and better
civilization is fast supplanting the scnibarbar-
ism of going il blind"-when vigilance COM
mittees were laws, lawyers, judges, jnres and
high sheIifls all in One-when mob violence. NOT
the calm investigations and decisions of Justice
ruled.
Among the efficient co-workers in this stupen.
dous task is a son Of Worcester county, A. N.
Towne, Esq, the general superintendent of the
Central Pacific road, overseeing about 1900 miles
Of track and its rolling stock, besides several
steamers. He is a native of Charlton, of the
family of Gen. Salem 1owne. The kinsman ON
the Pacific is to this wide-stretching country
what the general was to Charlton and the sur
rounding towns IN their younger days--amost
indispensable. His early Massachusetts train
ing Is perceptiblc in his sagacious, prudent vet
courageous, management of the vast interests
entrusted to his care. The bonds of This com.
pany are second to none in the bourses of En-
rope, paying their interest with unratliuo reou.
larlty and promptness, and liQuidatiny i,s IN.
de0tedness with very credltable rapditv
worthy representative Of the better traits or 10
state whence be came
ihe original site of this city was mostly on an
uneven billy surface except a small strip lying