Well, If I Lived In Fairy-Land, Where Cherries Were As Big As
Plums, Plums As Big As Apples, And
Strawberries of no account,
where the procession of the fruits of the seasons was like a
pageant in a Drury
Lane pantomime and the dry air was wine, I
should let business slide once in a way and kick up my heels with
my fellows. The tale of the resources of California - vegetable
and mineral - is a fairy-tale. You can read it in books. You
would never believe me.
All manner of nourishing food, from sea-fish to beef, may be
bought at the lowest prices, and the people are consequently
well-developed and of a high stomach. They demand ten shillings
for tinkering a jammed lock of a trunk; they receive sixteen
shillings a day for working as carpenters; they spend many
sixpences on very bad cigars, which the poorest of them smoke,
and they go mad over a prize-fight. When they disagree they do
so fatally, with fire-arms in their hands, and on the public
streets. I was just clear of Mission Street when the trouble
began between two gentlemen, one of whom perforated the other.
When a policeman, whose name I do not recollect, "fatally shot Ed
Hearney" for attempting to escape arrest, I was in the next
street. For these things I am thankful. It is enough to travel
with a policeman in a tram-car, and, while he arranges his
coat-tails as he sits down, to catch sight of a loaded revolver.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 31 of 101
Words from 7893 to 8153
of 26974
