"During 1853, most of the moral, intellectual, and social characteristics of the inhabitants of San Francisco were nearly as already described in the reviews of previous years. There was still the old reckless energy, the old love of pleasure, the fast making and fast spending of money; the old hard labor and wild delights; jobberies, official and political corruption; thefts, robberies, and violent assaults; murders, duels and suicides; gambling, drinking, and general extravagance and dissipation.... The people had wealth at command, and all the passions of youth were burning within them; and they often, therefore, outraged public decency. Yet somehow the oldest residenters and the very family-men loved the place, with all its brave wickedness and splendid folly." I can testify that the town knew little or no change in the two years that followed. The "El Dorado" on the plaza, and the "Arcade" and "Polka" on Commercial Street, were still in full blast. How came I aware of that fact? I was a child; my guide, philosopher and friend was a child, and we were both as innocent as children should be. It is 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.