At a more or less informal meeting held at the Tuolumne House, at which Tennessee Dick presided with more enthusiasm than knowledge of parliamentary law, it was finally decided that the gambling element of Jacksonville was a superfluous and dangerous quantity in the body social, and must therefore be removed--and that quickly. With the gambling fraternity there was included in a sweepingly condemnatory resolution, certain other unwholesome elements in our primitive social system--of the feminine persuasion. It was noticeable that those of our citizens whose losses at the gambling table were largest and most recent, or whose morals in other directions were least worthy of commendation, were the noisiest champions of social reform. As is usually the case with meetings where the dominant impulse is to pretend a virtue though one has it not, the party of reform--and noise--carried the day. The meeting was well timed, for the only man who might have interposed an objection to the sweeping tone of the final resolution was absent from town--Toppy had been in Stockton for several weeks. Poor fellow! He remained in blissful ignorance of the social revolution that menaced the safety of Poker Jim, until long after it was too late to defend his friend--in this world at least. Public opinion developed into concerted popular action very quickly in California mining towns, and by the following morning, due notice had been served on every individual who was in any way identified with the undesirable element of the population, to leave town within twenty-four hours. Most of the persons who were ordered to move on, had been in similar straits before, and were constantly on the _qui vive_ of expectation of some such emergency. As practice makes perfect, and delay is not healthful after one has been told to leave a mining town for the good of its morals, the majority of the tabooed ones took time by the forelock and decamped early. Indeed, by nightfall, everybody who had been given the ultimatum by the citizens, had departed--with one exception. * * * * * It was nearly midnight of the day of the exodus. A large party of our citizens were congregated in the bar-room of the Tuolumne House, discussing the important event that had so effectually cleared the moral atmosphere of our town. The subtle essence of sanctity apparently had already pervaded our social fabric.