OCR Text |
Show 244 TEAVELS AND ADVENTUEES LN THE FAE WEST. the better classes, although there are but few American families residing there. Alas! for the morals of the people at large; it was the usual salutation in. the morning, " Well, how many murders were committed last night ?"-" Only four- three Indians and a Mexican." Sometimes three, often two, but almost every night while I was there, one murder, at least, was committed. It became dangerous to walk abroad after night. A large number of American gamblers frequented the principal hotels, and induced the Californians to risk their money at all the famous games of monte, roulette, poker, faro, etc. When I arrived at San Francisco, I had the curiosity to enter one of the most frequented " hells," to see the process of winning and loosing money. The building selected.by the gentleman who accompanied me, was a celebrated one in Clay street. An orchestra of thirty-five musicians, were performing fashionable operatic airs; following the sound, we were introduced into the saloon, which was brilliantly illuminated; it was_ truly an imposing sight. There must have been over fifty tables, at which presided most beautiful women, dealing out cards, or whirling around a roulette table; at some might have been seen old gentlemen with white hair, to all appearance respectable, and whose proper place seemed to me, to be a magistrate's bench, or a judge's forum. Few or no words are spoken at the table; men silently place their gold on a card, and before a second expires, it is swept away; once out of many times, it is doubled by the player ; it remains and he wins: a second time fortune favors, it doubles again; the insatiate vice of selfishness, not satisfied with eight times what he originally staked, leaves his pile, building castles in the air with the im- |