“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE. HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. N^{o.} 14.] SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ THE GOLDEN CITY. “The fitful flame of Young Romance,” fed by the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Fairy tales and Heathen Mythologies; the wonderful fables of Genii and Magicians; stories of towns springing up, ready-built, out of deserts; tales of cities paved with gold; the Happy Valley of Rasselas; the territories of Oberon and Titania, Robert Owen’s New Harmony, and the land of Cockaigne; Gulliver’s Travels, the Adventures of Peter Wilkins, legends of beggars made kings, and mendicants millionaires; Sinbad the Sailor, Baron Munchausen, Law of Laurieston, Major Longbow, Colonel Crocket, the Poyais loan; illimitable exaggeration; undaunted lying; the most rampant schemes of the most rabid speculators; the wildest visions of the maddest poet; the airiest castle of the most Utopian lunatic—any one of these, and all of them put together, do not exceed the wondrous web of realities that is being daily woven around both hemispheres of the globe. Not to mention conversations carried on thousands of miles apart, by means of electricity, and a hundred other marvels that Science has converted into commonplaces, we would now confine ourselves to the latest “wonderful wonder that has ever been wondered at”—the gold region of California; but more especially to its capital, San Francisco.