walks the streets, and sometimes from the lips of boys.  In these saloons people of all ages congregated from youth up to hoary hairs.  Here were the Indian and the Negro, the American and the Mexican, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, the Italian, the Dutchman and the German, the Dane and the Russian, the English, the Irish and the Scotchman, the Chinaman and the Japanese.  One of the most noted of the saloons was the Bella Union, a Monte Carlo in itself.  Woe betide the miner from the mountains with gold who entered it.  Here was a richly appointed bar to tempt the desire for drink, while costly mirrors were arranged in such wise as to reflect the scenes of revelry, and pictures that were worth large sums of money hung on the walls.  The silverware too would have done credit to a royal board.  Both the tables and the bar were well patronised at all times.

Naturally with such elements of society, with the mad thirst for gold, with the loose morality which prevailed to a large extent, there would be great lawlessness.  It must be borne in mind however that the Christian Church was at work in those perilous times, which live only in memory now, and was gradually leavening the whole lump.  There were devout men and true women in early San Francisco, who, in the midst of “a crooked generation,” kept themselves pure and “unspotted from the world.”  And is it not true that men can hold fast their crown, that no man take it from them, if only they will make use of the grace of God?  God has His faithful witnesses in every place, in every age, no matter how corrupt.  There are the “seven thousand” who do not bow the kneel to Baal, there are the faithful “few names” even in Sardis who do not defile their garments with the world.  San Francisco had them in those days of special temptation, brave and noble souls who could say with Sir Galahad: 

  “My strength is as the strength of ten,
    Because my heart is pure.”

In this strength they rose up and purged the place, even though as difficult as a labour of Hercules.  The men of the Vigilance Committee will ever live in song and story.  Even up in the mountains in the gold mines of El Dorado county and elsewhere the spirit of the men of San Francisco was at work in the camps.  Robbers were there, bold characters, dark-browed men, who would not hesitate to steal, and kill, if need be, in their nefarious work.  The miners had their perils to encounter in these bandits.  The robbers had their dens in the mountains in lonely places, beside a trail sometimes, and in the depths of the forests.  The dens had generally two rooms on the ground floor and a loft which was reached by a ladder.  If a belated miner sought shelter or food here he was given a lodging in the loft.  If he drank with his “host” it would most likely be some liquor that was drugged, and in his heavy sleep he was sure to be robbed.  In the morning he had no redress, and he might consider himself fortunate if he escaped with his life.  Sometimes