William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

“ [163] not provide them tenements and make a profit by the enterprise? We bought estates, we cut down forests, and we laid out cities, for the millions who were coming to our coasts. At every opening on the Bay, you see these visionary towns, with phantom streets and squares, chapels and theatres, schools and prisons. But the millions never came, and for the last five years each man in San Francisco has been carrying a dead city on his back. This great bonanza is another of our fits. There is a true discovery in the Comstock lode. The world is richer than it was three months ago, but we are poorer than we were five years ago. No Redman ever staked his dog, his lodge, his squaw in a more reckless spirit than that in which the White men of San Francisco are gambling with their wealth.”