of the most ornate. The ceilings and walls were generally white with a
great deal of gilt. All classes of people frequented these places and
were welcomed there. Some were dressed in the height of fashion, and
some wore the roughest sort of miners' clothes--floppy old slouch hats,
flannel shirts, boots to which the dried mud was clinging or from which
it fell to the rich carpet. All were considered on an equal plane. The
professional gamblers came to represent a type of their own,--weary,
indifferent, pale, cool men, who had not only to keep track of the game
and the bets, but also to assure control over the crowd about them.
Often in these places immense sums were lost or won; often in these
places occurred crimes of shooting and stabbing; but also into these
places came many men who rarely drank or gambled at all. They assembled
to enjoy each other's company, the brightness, the music, and the
sociable warmth.

On Sunday the populace generally did one of two things: either it
sallied out in small groups into the surrounding country on picnics or
celebrations at some of the numerous road-houses; or it swarmed out the
plank toll-road to the Mission. To the newcomer the latter must have
been much the more interesting. There he saw a congress of all the
nations of the earth: French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen,
British, Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, Indians, the gorgeous
members of the Spanish races, and all sorts of queer people to whom no
habitat could be assigned. Most extraordinary perhaps were the men from
the gold mines of the Sierras. The miners had by now distinctly
segregated themselves from the rest of the population. They led a
hardier, more laborious life and were proud of the fact. They attempted
generally to differentiate themselves in appearance from all the rest of
the human race, and it must be confessed that they succeeded. The miners
were mostly young and wore their hair long, their beards rough; they