Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/266

 dences of destruction and breathed the "pestilent odor" of putrefaction. When the newcomer of 1851 began to explore the city streets he found the principal thoroughfare, Montgomery Street, about three-quarters of a mile long. On it were located most of the bankers' offices, the principal stores, some of the best restaurants, and numerous gambling and drinking establish- ments. Holinski asserts that the banks on Montgomery Street ranged from a branch of Rothschild's to saving banks with signs in all languages. There were no laws controlling savings banks, and they were usually swindling establishments. The stores were of Parisian elegance and the restaurants attracted all lovers of good food. Another observer, Hinton R. Helper, says of Clay Street: "Next to Montgomery, this is the most fashionable street in the city; the large establishments where retailers deal in ladies' and gentle- men's dress goods being situated upon it." The sidewalks were narrow and crowded, and ladies found shopping on this street "especially annoying and tedious; for they are designedly balked or hindered in their course by a set of well-dressed vagabonds, who promenade the trestoir from morning to night for the sole purpose of staring in their faces. "

Most of the streets were planked, as was of course that part of the city built on piles, but elsewhere the mud was ankle deep and there were holes in some of the streets which rendered them almost impassable. After the fires of May and June there were burned sections in the planking, and there was an uncovered empty cistern at the corner of California and Montgomery Streets. By August 6, one planked street (Jackson) could not be used be- tween Dupont and Montgomery because of the need for repairs. Ten days after the first complaint appeared in the Alta the street was still closed.- The Alta pointed out that the destruction of the street lights in the fire made such traps as uncovered cisterns and defective planking especially dangerous. On September 8 a notice appeared which said that a child had been lost who "answered to the name of Alick." Sixteen days later the child's body was found in an open vault into which he had fallen and drowned one night when he attempted to cross a dark lot as a short cut home.

Rats swarmed everywhere, and it was difficult to walk at night without treading on them, Borthwick reports, adding that it was not an unusual sight "to see a gentleman suddenly pull up the sleeve of his coat or the leg of his trousers, and smile in triumph when he caught his little tormentor," a flea. "Enormous heaps" of empty bottles "piled up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places" suggested to Mr. Borthwick a "consumption of liquor which was truly awful." The streets he described as "the general receptacle for every description of rubbish."

They were chiefly covered with bits of broken boxes and casks, fragments of hampers, iron hoops, old tin cases, and empty bottles. In the vicinity of the numerous Jew slop- shops, they were thickly strewed with old boots, hats, coats, and pantaloons; for the majority of the population carried their wardrobe on their backs, and when they bought