Page:A La California.djvu/346

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292
A CRUISE ON THE BARBARY COAST.

morning, with a broken head, utterly empty pockets, and a dim recollection of having been taken somewhere by some woman whom he cannot identify, and finding himself unexpectedly in the clutches of men he never saw before, who go through him like a policeman, taking from him watch, chain, and every other valuable, and pitch him headlong down a stairway; after which all is a blank in his memory. All these dens are open and in full blast, yet we see few persons going in or out who appear like customers, and they do not seem to be selling lager or whisky enough to pay for gaslight. Look in the papers tomorrow morning, and you will see items like this:

Robbed on the Barbary Coast.—John Smith, a miner from Mud Springs, El Dorado County, came down on the Sacramento boat last evening, and put up at the What Cheer House. On his way to the hotel, he made the acquaintance of a man who claimed to know a friend of his who had worked with him at mining in 1858, on the south fork of the Yuba. The two started out in search of this mythical friend, and visited numerous deadfalls without finding him. They drank at each place they visited, however, and about one o'clock this morning Smith reached the calaboose in a half-stupified condition, and charged a girl known as "Pigeon-toed-Sal," whose headquarters are in a deadfall near the corner of Kearny and Pacific streets, and her male confederate, with robbing him of $800, her companion holding him down while she searched his pockets, and took the money from them. Officers Smith and Brown arrested Sal and her confederate, the "Billy Goat," and locked them up on the charge of grand larceny, but it is doubtful if the charge can be sustained, as the money was not recovered, and the friends of the accused will fee a lawyer with the money, and hire the witnesses for twenty-five per cent, to leave the State, or swear that Smith had agreed to marry the girl, and gave her the money