Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1893-12-10
FRIscO'S STREET OF ALL NATIONS.
Thoroughfare Almost as Cosmopolitan ms
the Midway.
(san Francisco Examiner.)

It
Now, II you stand in the dust OF East
street and glance up Pacific street west
ward you can there contemplate free Oh
charge n genesis and chronological history
of San Francisco at first hand. First the
humble saloon with the gaudy name,
wedged In between junkshop and res
tuarant and patroniSed by the bluff and
hearty mariner or his comrade, the long
shoreman, or the coal-heaver
II is an old and ramshackle district.
Even the dazzling pea-green of the sun
burst Of Erin" saloon. with It's white
dimity curtains and its hospitable-look-
ing beer-kegs on the sidewalk, cannot
make the place seem otherwise than gone
to seed. and yet the land that the wretch
ed little two-story frame structures stand
on is all artificial and was built at good
ness only knows what cost at that time
when Kearny street was away on up
town.
Right across the way on the corner is
the spot whence the Oakland ferry sailed
in early days, and diagonally across from
that again is the old RIP Van Wrinkle
saloon. with its whale-back roof-warped
BY the weight of years-and its dlngy
windows, its beer-kegs. and its history.
Bless US. but how things whooped In
the half-ruined Rip Van Wrinkle In those
early days, when Lew Rather ran 1t,
and drinks cost two bits apiece, and for
tunes changed hands every night across
the green tables upstairs. And how all
that end Of Davis street, as well as the
corner Of Pacific street did huml
Still higher UP and opposite the vege-
table market old man Franklin sits In the
sun outside his sailors-store just as he
did a quarter Of a century back. There is
nothing on earth that old man Franklin
won't buy from a sailor man, and scarce
ly anything he won't sell him. He sits
outside his store. or rather In the door
way thereof. all day. with old sealskin
coats and fishskin boots dangling over
his head and around him; and he smiles
smile of contentment. which shows
that philosophy obtains even on lower
Pacific street, for old man Franklin's life
has been scanned up n bit, and his family
affairs-but they have nothing to 90
with Pacific street.
Now, II you trace the street up from
the corner Of Davis street there. or from
the middle of the block where old man
Franklin sits In his doorway, and follow
1t away up the hill TO Polk, where the
street gets too important for itself and
insists upon being called Pacific avenue,
you will see laid out step by step and
block by block almost every era and incl
dent in the city's history.
WHO SAIL IN SHIPS.
First you fall among Swedes and Morse
men and other Scandnavians, who sail
In ships from their native land. and live
along the waterfront I'm alien towns. until
they have a chance to ship for home
again.
Then there come saloons. saloons, sa-
looms and more saloons; and In every
saloon il music and song; and there Is
not enough morality I'm the whole lot OF
them TO save the soul of an oyster This
is the section primeval whittier the sturdy
adventurer, sailOr-man, or pathfinder OF
the plains, drifts instinctively Immediately
upon arriving in town. These saloons, or
their like, were thriving when the hrst
blast of the gold-fever swept east from
the Pacific Ocean. They form the cosmo-
polls of a cosmopolitan town. and also
form the more solid foundations, as 1t
were, that the more ornate vices and more
gilded saloons OF sin are built upon; and
yet but q block above Is the neat and
thrifty colony of our French fellow-citi-
zens, and beside them the equally thrifty
and industrious Swiss-Italians.
The French are n persistent people, and
originally started in residing at the lower
end of the hill, In pleasing proximity TO
Montgomery street. and on the fringes or
what was once the SWEETEST quarter or
the city. Then the Chinese came. Their
lives depended on their proximity to the
old City Hall In those days, and they
knew II: so they came In like wedge
above Kearny street, and nipped for
while the upward tendency of the French.
Now as the Chinese spread west they
drove out the aristocratIc residents from
the adjacent blocks, and the French noted
this circumstance.
You doubtless understand the move In
draughts. whereby you corral your OPP
ponent's checker by jumping over 1t.
Well. the French corralled the Chinese In
lust such a manner. They jumped Chi
natown with q bound and proceeded to
occupy the now reasonably rented man.
sions that the wealthy had he'd from
after the Chinese invasion.
A few colored families sought to start
a colony In just about the same latitude,
but were driven back a block south 10
jackson by the exclusive French, who
Joined forces with the Irish and native
Americans block above against the COM
mon enemy. Only for this fact Pacific
street would have black belt stretching
from Chinatown to Mason; but no such
zone now exists.
From Mason street west. Pacific street
maintains an air OF irreproachable and
uniform responsibility until Polk street
is reached. when 1t becomes too oppres-
sively respectable for a mere street or
common highway and blossoms out as
an avenue full of Gothic, Queen Anne.
and Mary Ann architecture. The down.
town numbers still obtain-that is. The
hundreds follow consecutively as though
there were no distinction between street
and avenue. But distinetion-an enor-
nous one-exists. and II Is gall and
q thorn In tina side OF the ayenueites
that the street people are connected with
them even by a number In fact. Pacific
ayenue is like pollywog In the process
of transmutation. First. It was only a
tan with an eye In 1t. then a body grew
on the tail. monopolzed the eyes, but
still had TO depend upon the tail. Pres
emily the time comes when the body has
no longer to depend upon the tail for
locomotion. but wiggles the very ap-
pendage whereby 1t was once wiggled
Itself. then last of all It drops the tail
altogether and pretends 1t never had one.
Pacific avenue. however. has not been