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CHAPTER XVIII.

PACIFIC COAST PRISONS. Such prisons are beyond all liberty. —Suckling.

Lovely San Quentin" Saint thief! Thief and no saint. Saint and the dwelling place of thieves and other malefactors. The name and the naming were eccentric and mongrel, though, as it turned out, suitable enough, even considering that to Spanish " San" was given a foreign "Quentin."

To explain. Round that bright corner of San Francisco bay, where under the shadow of Tamalpais nestle the coves of Corte de Madera and San Rafael, with Punta de Quintin, as the point was called in Spanish times, between them, there once roamed with his people a native chieftain, who, on allowing him self to be sprinkled on the head, and made a son of the church, as well as an humble vassal of the Spanish crown, was honored by the padre with the name of Quintin, after one of the saints. Now, this Quintin, like others we have known possessing Christianity, was very far from a Christian's ideal in his raids and other immoral practises, inasmuch as stealing and killing formed parts of his programmes.

It has been claimed that the point was called San Quintin in remembrance of a victory won by the Spaniards over the French in 1547, in front of the city of San Quintin, the ancient Augusta Veromandorum; but there is no evidence of that being a fact; nor for placing San before Quintin. It was the aboriginal non-sanctus after whom it was named.