This text is part of:
“
[157]
afternoon.
Reports were in the papers, showing the amount of money in the savings-banks; no less a sum than fifty millions of dollars.
Tossing off his whisky, one of our worthy citizens said to another, “Guess we ought to have that money out!”
They all agreed with him; and having formed a ring, they are now engaged in operations for getting that money out of the savings-banks.”
These citizens understand the farmers, stockmen, and petty dealers whom they mean to fleece.
In San Francisco every one is used to changes in the price of shares, and most of all in that of mining shares.
With all the coolness of a Redskin, the White Californian will stake his fortune on a street report, begun by any person, spread abroad for any purpose, hardly caring whether the report be true or false.
Like brandy in his veins, he feels the devilry that comes with sudden gain and loss.
Here is no old and steady middle class, with decent habits, born in the bone and nurtured on the hearth; people who pay their debts, walk soberly to church, and keep the ten commandments, for the sake of order, if no higher rule prevails.
In San Francisco, a few rich men, consisting of the various rings, are
1875.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.