vices became their ruin.  In calm moments when alone or under some momentary impulse of goodness there would rise before them the vision of God-fearing parents—­of open Bibles—­of hallowed Sundays; but the thirst for gold could not be quenched, the mad race must be run, and to the bitter end, dishonour, death, the grave!  Shelley, if he had stood in the midst of the gamblers, staking all, even their souls, for gold, in those California days of wild revelry, could not have expressed himself more appositely than in his graphic and truthful lines, in Queen Mab: 

  “Commerce has set the mark of selfishness;
  The signet of its all-enslaving power
  Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: 
  Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
  The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
  The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings,
  And with blind feelings reverence the power
  That grinds them to the dust of misery. 
  But in the temple of their hireling hearts
  Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn
  All earthly things but virtue.”

The saloons fifty years ago were the centres of attraction for the over-wrought miner, the aimless wanderer, the creature of impulse, the child of passion.  They were decorated with an eye to brilliant colours, to gorgeous effect, to all that appeals to the sensuous element in our nature.  They were the best built and most richly furnished houses in the San Francisco of that period.  The walls were adorned with costly paintings, and the furniture was in keeping with this lavish outlay.  In each gambling house was a band of music, and a skillful player received some $30 per night for his services.  Painted women were the presiding geniuses at the wheels of fortune and these modern Circes or Sirens played the piano and the harp with all the passion of their art to drown men’s cares and make them forget duty and principle and honour.  The tables of the players of the games were piled high with yellow gold to serve as a tempting bait.  The games were chiefly what are called in the nomenclature of the gambling fraternity.  Rouge-et-noir, Monte-faro, and Roulette.  The men who lost, whatever their feelings might be, and they were often bitter, as a rule disguised their sore disappointment.  They would try their luck again, but this only led them deeper in the mire.  Many an one lost a princely fortune in a night.  The gambling houses were located chiefly around the Plaza or Portsmouth Square, of which we have already spoken.  They were filled, as a general thing, all night, with an eager throng, especially on Sunday.  Indeed everything then had its full course on Sunday.  There were various sports; drinking and gambling ran riot.  Blasphemous words filled the air.  Men swore without the least thought.  But profanity is not alone restricted to a frontier or border community, where laws and a sense of propriety are wanting.  One may hear it in old and civilised towns, as he