them stayed after the gold ran out. One large group that did remain to form the base of San Francisco society was composed of Southerners, some of whom had come for gold, others simply to flee the poverty and political turmoil of Dixie. They fought for control of the local Democratic party, and fought duels over secession and slavery. Harshly conservative, they formed and led the Committees of Vigilance of 1851 and 1856—the infamous San Francisco vigilantes — hanging malefactors indiscriminately to curb crime.
The Nevada silver strike of ’59 fueled a second great growth period, for the City was the port of entry for the fabulous Comstock Lode. She soon had quite a cosmopolitan population. Criminal riffraff from Australia had arrived, and penniless Irish. There was a large laboring population, both whites and their formidable competitors, ambitious and energetic Chinese brought in to lay the Central Pacific through the mountains— “Cholly Crocker’s Pets,” they were called. By the 1880s, San Francisco was home to 290,000 people, prosperous banks, fishing and shipping interests, flourishing theaters, a prolific literary community, and cable cars that had been clanging up and down Nob Hill for over a decade. She boasted many rich and notable families — leaders of a young society who yearned to match the elegance and prestige of Mr. Ward McAllister’s New York “Four Hundred.”
By this time San Francisco had a distinct and unconcealed arrogance. All those living across the Bay in Oakland, those so unfortunate as to hail from the Central Valley, those residing in the wretched adobes and cow towns south of the Tehachapis—those people simply didn’t exist, or if they did, they were scarcely better than savages. This so inflamed the Southern Californians in particular that they tried unsuccessfully to secede on several occasions.
Of course, as a practical matter, the elite of the City could do little about the continuing flood of arriving sailors, “Chinks,” Irish, Valley parvenus, and the like. Little, that is, but snub them, build invisible walls, and keep the outsiders in their place — on occasion, by force.
8
L ONG AFTERWARD, MACK SPECULATED about the direction his life might have taken—how different it might have been—if, on that afternoon, he hadn’t followed his nature and acted as he so often did: impulsively.
There was no hint that an impulsive act would be called for as Heavenly Dragon chugged up to a ramshackle finger wharf where a number of empty hay scows were moored. Mack jumped to the pier, which was deserted save for a crewman repairing a line on a scow down at water level, and a fisherman, a sickly-looking old man seated on a stool. Neither paid attention to Mack, and the massif of the City, lumber and brick, granite and glass, seemed equally indifferent. Damned if San Francisco would be indifferent to him very long.
He shouted a good-bye, promising to stay in touch, and Bao waved and pushed off. As the launch wake whitened and broadened, Mack studied the busy waterfront curving around toward the northwest. A hundred yards of dark-green water separated this wharf from the next, much larger one; it contained the slips of the SP Central Ferry Terminal.
Passengers streamed in and out of the unattractive wood building, which was little more than a vast dark shed. Ferry officials—the kind who’d kicked him overboard—bustled about. One ferry was coming in across the Bay and another, Alameda , was just heading out with a flurry of bells and whistles.
Then Mack saw her.
She was a young woman, poised on the edge of the pier about a hundred feet away. Stylish and very neat, she was wearing a tubular gray skirt, a shirtwaist with vertical stripes of peppermint and white, little white gloves, and a jaunty flat straw hat held in place by a large brass pin. She was slim, with small round breasts and no bustle.
He started walking toward her. She gave the departing ferry a final glance,
The Nevada silver strike of ’59 fueled a second great growth period, for the City was the port of entry for the fabulous Comstock Lode. She soon had quite a cosmopolitan population. Criminal riffraff from Australia had arrived, and penniless Irish. There was a large laboring population, both whites and their formidable competitors, ambitious and energetic Chinese brought in to lay the Central Pacific through the mountains— “Cholly Crocker’s Pets,” they were called. By the 1880s, San Francisco was home to 290,000 people, prosperous banks, fishing and shipping interests, flourishing theaters, a prolific literary community, and cable cars that had been clanging up and down Nob Hill for over a decade. She boasted many rich and notable families — leaders of a young society who yearned to match the elegance and prestige of Mr. Ward McAllister’s New York “Four Hundred.”
By this time San Francisco had a distinct and unconcealed arrogance. All those living across the Bay in Oakland, those so unfortunate as to hail from the Central Valley, those residing in the wretched adobes and cow towns south of the Tehachapis—those people simply didn’t exist, or if they did, they were scarcely better than savages. This so inflamed the Southern Californians in particular that they tried unsuccessfully to secede on several occasions.
Of course, as a practical matter, the elite of the City could do little about the continuing flood of arriving sailors, “Chinks,” Irish, Valley parvenus, and the like. Little, that is, but snub them, build invisible walls, and keep the outsiders in their place — on occasion, by force.
8
L ONG AFTERWARD, MACK SPECULATED about the direction his life might have taken—how different it might have been—if, on that afternoon, he hadn’t followed his nature and acted as he so often did: impulsively.
There was no hint that an impulsive act would be called for as Heavenly Dragon chugged up to a ramshackle finger wharf where a number of empty hay scows were moored. Mack jumped to the pier, which was deserted save for a crewman repairing a line on a scow down at water level, and a fisherman, a sickly-looking old man seated on a stool. Neither paid attention to Mack, and the massif of the City, lumber and brick, granite and glass, seemed equally indifferent. Damned if San Francisco would be indifferent to him very long.
He shouted a good-bye, promising to stay in touch, and Bao waved and pushed off. As the launch wake whitened and broadened, Mack studied the busy waterfront curving around toward the northwest. A hundred yards of dark-green water separated this wharf from the next, much larger one; it contained the slips of the SP Central Ferry Terminal.
Passengers streamed in and out of the unattractive wood building, which was little more than a vast dark shed. Ferry officials—the kind who’d kicked him overboard—bustled about. One ferry was coming in across the Bay and another, Alameda , was just heading out with a flurry of bells and whistles.
Then Mack saw her.
She was a young woman, poised on the edge of the pier about a hundred feet away. Stylish and very neat, she was wearing a tubular gray skirt, a shirtwaist with vertical stripes of peppermint and white, little white gloves, and a jaunty flat straw hat held in place by a large brass pin. She was slim, with small round breasts and no bustle.
He started walking toward her. She gave the departing ferry a final glance,
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