Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-29
WHY SAN FRANCISCO WAS FASCINATING
BY William Hamilton Cline

across the continent in leisurely fash
ion, stopping here and there On the
first Saturday in March [ left Ogden
and its SHOWS, and awoke Sunday, to
spend much of the day climbing inter-
minable miles of the Sierras through
| equally interminabe miles of snow
sheds. Then, suddenly, we dropped as
If from a balloon, over the summit,
down into the Sacramento valley, so
hot that we became faint. And then
through this great heat-still greater
by contrast with the ages of snow just
before tive iourneyed suffering and
smothered.
Then, just before nightfall. we ran
into the cool bay breeze as if we had
inspiring. was thus the first breath Of
San Francisco.
And equally enhancing was its first
glimpse No city in the world had
finer front door. The trip across the
bay, facing the declining sun, was along
a pathway of molten gold, fit augury
of the glory which first made this
wondrous land. The tall spire of the
| ferry station was a finger of beauty,
raised athwart the gilded orb. The
terraced hills melted one into the other;
the snowy Fairmount the apex. The
Call building was the great exclamation
point in this symphony Of ecstasy. The
hills behind were a background unpar-
aleled in any painting. Already one
loved this Frisco, which one had not
yet seen
forth from that grand caravansary
that once was famed the world around
and walked UP Market stret. Then, the
coils which had ensnared me in ap-
preaching the city, bound me fast.
Imagine the picture: A Sunday night
in early March, when the east is
swathed in snowdrifts. Soft, balmy yet
crisp air, like wine in ones nostrils.
A great, broad, nondescript thorough
fare, with serrated sky line of man.
moth sky-scrapers and low novels
cheek by jowl. A place of flashing
light, shaming the MONDAY sun.
Changing, rushing, speeding. rafting
cars, in endless procession, filled in
with footing, shrieking autos and clat-
tering carts, wagons, cabs and car
riages, till the street is a hideous
babel. rumblng. roaring maelstrom.
swirling swarming tide of humanity
pulsating up and down the broad
walks, jammed so closely that one
up, yet all happy laughing, care-free.
Shops of every variety wide open,
many of them utterly without fronts,
never closed. Cigar counters flank the
walk, slot machines and dice games
running steadily. Saloons ablaze with
lights innumerable, all doing business
every hour. Butcher shops with car
casses of meat hung against their pill
lars, against which furs and satins
brush. Fruiterers and green grocers
occupying more space than the law al
lows, with every delicacy of the year
crowded into one season. Huge cafes
packed, the booming of the orchestras
mingling with the tinny strum of the
automatic piano in the penny parlors"
or the raucous voice of the sideshow
barker. The street preacher declaim-
ing to unheeding throngs; the medicine
faker enjoying a large audience; the
Salvation army puncturing the atmos-
phere with its religio-popular songs.
And over and above all, the laughter
and gayety, the insouciance of a mot
ley horde, all on pleasure bent. heed
less of tomorrow. so there be fun to-
night!
Imagine that-to one accustomed to
Sabbath's eastern quiet and calm; to
deserted Broadway, or State street or
Olive street! Think of dropping down
into that on Sunday night Would
you be fascinated?
And the throng there commingled-
the most cosmopolitan the world af-
fords Light haired, painted under
world women in furs; dark, big beau
tics in remarkably openwork shirt
waists; shop girls chewing gum
"Johhnies" in top hats and evening
clothes, without top coats; straw hats
and fannels, coonskin caps and over
coats; the sailor in baggy trousers and
the soldier from the Preside in khaki;
the nondescript from the bay regions,
in corduroys. and the tourist, in era
venette, cap and camera-all these. And
then some-the Chinese woman, with
her tapping bifurcated neither gar
ments, her baby on her back, her slant
eyed lord in gorgeous skirts ahead OF
her; the little Japanese woman, pitt
fully painted and powdered, making
poor parade in incongruous American
attire, scarcely less outre and uncom-
Portable than her escart in pot hat and
tweeds; the Lascar, up from Barbary
coast; the husky. loudly dressed negro;
the 'cholo" in his velveteens and SOM
brero: the count from Austria and the