an-
plougher, a thing of life, comes freighted with high destiny. Laden with how many tons of joy and sor- row comes she ? How many bundles of love and hate brings she ? How many thousands of little packets of happiness and misery are to be distributed from the mass of mail-sacks in her" hold ?
Many were the men coming from the mines with their little bag of hard-earned gold-dust, just enough to carry them home, and perhaps a little more, who fell victims to the slight-of-hand sharks of Long Wharf. It is strange that so many simple ones with beards and brawny arms and wrinkled faces should be found among those who had spent a year or more in the country. It certainly speaks well for their asso- ciates in the mines; but most of the weather-beaten innocents were western men who came across the plains and had never seen New York, San Francisco, or any other large city, and the professionals of Long Wharf were adepts, and very shrewd. Numberless were the complaints of these old infants before the re- corder, of having been inveigled under some pretext into a low den, and there robbed, or induced to bet on some sure thing. The cappers for these houses could put their hands upon their victim among a thousand; usually in some way they professed friendship for the countryman, and gained his confidence — he was from the same state, was likewise a;oino: home, was just about to procure his ticket, would show his friend the way, stopping, accidentally of course, at the house of his thieving associates.
Thus in the mines were elements instinct with riot and unrest, while in the cities numberless were the disgraceful bankruptcies attributable to foppery and the indulgence of the palate. Such as these, emptying at one long draught the Circe-profiered cup, straightway were turned to swine, retaining yet their human facul- ties. To some it seemed as if a premium was laid on indulgence and extravagance. Fires were sweeping
