written, "Children and fools speak the truth." I may add, "Children and
'fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'" The doors of "El Dorado,"
of the "Arcade," and the "Polka" were ever open to the public. We saw
from the sidewalk gaily-decorated interiors; we heard enchanting music,
and there seemed to be a vast deal of jollity within. No one tried to
prevent our entering; we merely followed the others; and, indeed, it was
all a mystery to us. Cards were being dealt at the faro tables, and
dealt by beautiful women in bewildering attire. They also turned the
wheels of fortune or misfortune, and threw dice, and were skilled in all
the arts that beguile and betray the innocent. The town was filled with
such resorts; some were devoted to the patronage of the more exclusive
set; many were traps into which the miner from the mountain gulches fell
and where he soon lost his bag of "dust,"--his whole fortune, for which
he had been so long and so wearily toiling. There he was shoulder to
shoulder with the greaser and the lascar, the "shoulder-striker" and the
hoodlum; and they were all busy with monte, faro, rondo, and
rouge-et-noir.

There was no limit to the gambling in those days. There was no question
of age or color or sex: opportunity lay in wait for inclination at the
street corners and in the highways and the byways. The wonder is that
there were not more victims driven to madness or suicide.

The pictures were not all so gloomy. Six times San Francisco was
devastated by fire, and all within two years--or, to speak accurately,
within eighteen months. Many millions were lost; many enterprising and
successful citizens were in a few hours rendered penniless. Some were
again and again "burned out"; but they seemed to spring like the famed
bird, who shall for once be nameless, from their own ashes.