The Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 34

Reports reach us here of high-handed robberies by the banditti all along the road to the City of Mexico. They steal clothes as well as coin. A few days since the mail coach entered the city with all the pa.s.sengers stark-naked! They must have felt mortified.

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IV.

CALIFORNIA.

We reach San Francisco one Sunday afternoon. I am driven to the Occidental Hotel by a kind-hearted hackman, who states that inasmuch as I have come out there to amuse people, he will only charge me five dollars. I pay it in gold, of course, because greenbacks are not current on the Pacific coast.

Many of the citizens of San Francisco remember the Sabbath day to keep it jolly; and the theatres, the circus, the minstrels, and the music halls are all in full blast to-night.

I "compromise," and go to the Chinese theatre, thinking perhaps there can be no great harm in listening to worldly sentiments when expressed in a language I don't understand.

The Chinaman at the door takes my ticket with the remark, "Ki hi-hi ki!

Shoolah!"

And I tell him that on the whole I think he is right.

The Chinese play is "continued," like a Ledger story, from night to night. It commences with the birth of the hero or heroine, which interesting event occurs publicly on the stage; and then follows him or her down to the grave, where it cheerfully ends.

Sometimes a Chinese play lasts six months. The play I am speaking of had been going on for about two months. The heroine had grown up into womanhood, and was on the point, as I inferred, of being married to a young Chinaman in spangled pantaloons and a long black tail. The bride's father comes in with his arms full of tea-chests, and bestows them, with his blessing, upon the happy couple. As this play is to run four months longer, however, and as my time is limited, I go away at the close of the second act, while the orchestra is performing an overture on gongs and one-stringed fiddles.

The door-keeper again says, "Ki hi-hi ki! Shoolah!" adding, this time however, "Chow-wow." I agree with him in regard to the ki hi and hi ki, but tell him I don't feel altogether certain about the chow-wow.

To Stockton from San Francisco.

Stockton is a beautiful town, that has ceased to think of becoming a very large place, and has quietly settled down into a state of serene prosperity. I have my boots repaired here by an artist who informs me that he studied in the penitentiary; and I visit the lunatic asylum, where I encounter a vivacious maniac who invites me to ride in a chariot drawn by eight lions and a rhinoceros.

John Phoenix was once stationed at Stockton, and put his mother aboard the San Francis...o...b..at one morning with the sparkling remark, "Dear mother, be virtuous and you will be happy!" _______________ Forward to Sacramento--which is the capital of the State, and a very nice old town.

They had a flood here some years ago, during which several blocks of buildings sailed out of town and had never been heard from since. A Chinaman concluded to leave in a wash tub, and actually set sail in one of those fragile barks. A drowning man hailed him piteously, thus: "Throw me a rope, oh throw me a rope!" To which the Chinaman excitedly cried, "No have got--how can do?" and went on, on with the howling current. He was never seen more; but a few weeks after his tail was found by some Sabbath-school children in the north part of the State.

_______________ I go to the mountain towns. The sensational mining days are over, but I find the people jolly and hospitable nevertheless.

At Nevada I am called upon, shortly after my arrival, by an athletic scarlet-faced man, who politely says his name is Blaze.

Years ago Mr. Blaze was an agent of the California Stage Company. There was a formidable and well-organized opposition to the California Stage Company at that time, and Mr. Blaze rendered them such signal service in his capacity of agent that they were very sorry when he tendered his resignation.

"You are some sixteen hundred dollars behind in your accounts, Mr.

Blaze," said the President, "but in view of your faithful and efficient services we shall throw off eight hundred dollars off that amount."

Mr. Blaze seemed touched by this generosity. A tear stood in his eye and his bosom throbbed audibly.

"You will throw off eight hundred dollars--you will?" he at last cried, seizing the President's hand and pressing it pa.s.sionately to his lips.

"I will," returned the President.

"Well, sir," said Mr. Blaze, "I'm a gentleman, I am, you bet! And I won't allow no Stage Company to surpa.s.s me in politeness. I'll throw off the other eight hundred, and we'llcall it square! No grat.i.tude, sir--no thanks; it is my duty." _______________ I get back to San Francisco in a few weeks, and am to start home Overland from here.

I do not leave the Capital of California in a light-hearted and joyous manner. But "leaves have their time to fall," and I have my time to leave, which is now.

We ride all day and all night, and ascend and descend some of the most frightful hills I ever saw. We make Johnson's Pa.s.s, which is 6752 feet high, about two o'clock in the morning, and go down the great Kingsbury grade with locked wheels. The driver, with whom I sit outside, informs me, as we slowly roll down this fearful mountain road, which looks down on either side into an appalling ravine, that he has met accidents in his time, and cost the California Stage Company a great deal of money; "because," he says, "juries is agin us on principle, and every man who sues us is sure to recover. But it will never be so agin, not with me, you bet."

"How is that?" I said.

It was frightfully dark. It was snowing withal, and notwithstanding the brakes were kept hard down, the coach slewed wildly, often fairly touching the brink of the black precipice.

"How is that?" I said.

"Why, you see," he replied, "that corpses never sue for damages, but maimed people do. And the next time I have a overturn I shall go round and keerfully examine the pa.s.sengers. Them as is dead I shall let alone; but them as is mutilated I shall finish with the king-bolt! Dead folks don't sue. They ain't on it."

Thus with anecdote did this driver cheer me up.

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V.

WASHOE.

We reach Carson City about nine o'clock in the morning. It is the capital of the silver-producing territory of Nevada.

They shoot folks here somewhat, and the law is rather partial than otherwise to first-cla.s.s murderers.

I visit the territorial Prison, and the Warden points out the prominent convicts to me thus:

"This man's crime was horse-stealing. He is here for life."

"This man is in for murder. He is here for three years."

But shooting isn't as popular in Nevada as it once was. A few years since they used to have a dead man for breakfast every morning. A reformed desperado told my that he supposed he had killed men enough to stock a graveyard. "A feeling of remorse," he said, "sometimes comes over me! But I'm an altered man now. I hain't killed a man for over two weeks! What'll yer poison yourself with?" he added, dealing a resonant blow on the bar.

There used to live near Carson City a notorious desperado, who never visited town without killing somebody. He would call for liquor at some drinking-house, and if anybody declined joining him he would at once commence shooting. But one day he shot a man too many. Going into the St. Nicholas drinking-house he asked the company present to join him in a North American drink. One individual was rash enough to refuse. With a look of sorrow rather than anger the desperado revealed his revolver, and said, "Good G.o.d! Must I kill a man every time I come to Carson?"

and so saying he fired and killed the individual on the spot. But this was the last murder the bloodthirsty miscreant ever committed, for the aroused citizens pursued him with rifles and shot him down in his own dooryard. _______________ I lecture in the theatre at Carson, which opens out of a drinking and gambling house. On each side of the door where my ticket-taker stands there are monte-boards and sweat-cloths, but they are deserted to-night, the gamblers being evidently of a literary turn of mind. _______________ Five years ago there was only a pony-path over the precipitous hills on which now stands the marvelous city of Virginia, with its population of twelve thousand persons, and perhaps more. Virginia, with its stately warehouses and gay shops; its splendid streets, paved with silver ore; its banking houses and faro-banks; its attractive coffee-houses and elegant theatre, its music halls and its three daily newspapers. _______________ I visit several of the adjacent mining towns, but I do not go to Aurora. No, I think not.

A lecturer on psychology was killed there the other night by the playful discharge of a horse-pistol in the hands of a degenerate and intoxicated Spaniard. This circ.u.mstance, and a rumor that the citizens are "agin"

literature, induce me to go back to Virginia. _______________ I had pointed out to me at a restaurant a man who had killed four men in street broils, and who had that very day cut his own brother's breast open in a dangerous manner with a small supper knife. He was a gentleman, however. I heard him tell some men so. He admitted it himself. And I don't think he would lie about a little thing like that.

The theatre at Virginia will attract the attention of the stranger, because it is an unusually elegant affair of the kind, and would be so regarded anywhere. It was built, of course, by Mr. Thomas Maguire, the Napoleonic manager of the Pacific, and who has built over twenty theatres in his time and will perhaps build as many more, unless somebody stops him--which, by the way, will not be a remarkably easy thing to do.

As soon as a mining camp begins to a.s.sume the proportions of a city, at about the time the whiskey-vender draws his cork or the gambler spreads his green cloth, Maguire opens a theatre, and with a hastily-organized "Vigilance Committee" of actors, commences to execute Shakespeare.

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VI.