Abraham Abrahamsohn

INTERESTING ACCOUNTS OF THE TRAVELS OF ABRAHAM ABRAHAMSOHN
TO AMERICA AND ESPECIALLY TO THE GOLD MINES OF
CALIFORNIA AND AUSTRALIA

Originally Printed and Published by
CARL FRIEDRICH TROMMSDORF,
Ilmenau, Germany, 1856

ON SEPTEMBER 1, 1967, James de T. Abajian, then librarian of the California Historical Society, wrote to the editor from San Francisco, informing him of his purchase of a copy of the Abraham Abrahamsohn narrative, which had been published in Germany in 1856. A photocopy of this book was ordered and sent to the writer by Mr. Abajian, who expressed the opinion "that it will become an important item in early California Judaica."

Abrahamsohn arrived in New York from Germany in July, 1849. In January, 1851, he left New York to go to California via the Isthmus of Panama. He arrived in San Francisco in April, 1851. His experiences in the Golden State are as diverse as they are fascinating. Though trained as a baker and confectioner, he was also a certified mohel and in California, was called upon to render services in the latter capacity. In May, 1852, he left for Australia, arriving in July. There he remained for almost a year. In September of 1853, he returned to his family in Germany.

We have been fortunate to obtain the services of a friend, Mrs. Marlene P. Toeppen, to translate this book from the German. She is a professional translator, specializing in the translating of scientific books and articles for a number of national agencies. Mrs. Toeppen is related to the Walter and Goodhart families of New York, through her maternal grandmother, nee Emma Bernheimer, formerly of Munich. Now a resident of Sherman Oaks, California, Mrs. Toeppen has lived in the State for thirty years. --NORTON B. STERN

THE TRAVELLER, now a resident of Erfurt, was lying comfortably on the couch in his robe, aromatic cigar smoke drifting from his bearded lips, with a crystal pitcher of Coburg beer in front of him. He told of his travels and his life in foreign countries, and I, sitting across from him, made notes of the most interesting parts.

The sketches related to me are true, completely true. Whether or not I have been able to depict them well and interestingly is to be decided by indulgent experts; I am only certain of the diligence and honest care I applied.

The traveller did not keep a diary. During his long and distant trips he did not have the least intention of making observations for a literary work, but purely and solely set out to earn a fortune. Thus, many things will have been observed and interpreted lightly and fleetingly. Despite this, the work is not lacking in individual sincerity. The proper names are given as they were pronounced to me.

The traveller does not intend to move in high-flown tirades and phrases, loaded with a geographical mess stolen from other books, but means to present to the eye of the reader, briefly and vividly, all that he saw, heard and did. --FRIEDRICH MIHM Coburg, 1856

CHAPTER ONE. — Trip via Hamburg and Glasgow to New York. My disappointed expectations there. Many desperate endeavors to keep from starving. Boston.

CHAPTER Two. — I become a glazier. Way of life in New York. The rich German brewer. Misfortune in the clothing business. Golden California beckons. The trip there.

CHAPTER THREE. -- Life in San Francisco. The clothing business. I am driven to beggary through a conflagration. I become a gold miner. The bear. Life in the mines.

CHAPTER FOUR. — I acquire a companion. The dangerous Irishman. The Jew and the Mexican. Mishaps. The Indians. Sacramento City. I become a jobbing tailor.

CHAPTER FIVE. — Fight of the bull and the bear. A case of adultery. The revenge of the Mexican woman. The gold miner in need. I become a circurnciser in San Francisco and then a restaurant owner.

CHAPTER SIX. -- I am again burned out. Gambling fever. The punished gold thief. I become a mazzos baker. The daring purchase. Decision to travel to Australia.

CHAPTER SEVEN. — Life during the trip across the Pacific. Festivities when crossing the Equator. Sidney. The tumuluous trip to Melbourne.

CHAPTER EIGHT. — The large herds of sheep and cattle in the area of Melbourne. Canvastown. Expedition to the mines. The mines. Swindle and luck.

CHAPTER NINE. — Much gold with much trouble. The Papus or natives. The grateful aborigine. I am crowded out of my Eldorado. Pallrad. The self-made bakery. My extensive and successful public-house business.

CHAPTER TEN. — The German sailor and the German Baron. Good advice. The rare piece of gold.

CHAPTER ELEVEN. — Nostalgia for the homeland. Preparations for departure. Geelong. Melbourne. The sailship Parkbar takes me around Cape Horn to Bahia. The Spanish woman.

CHAPTER TWELVE. — Bahia. The obliging doctor. The great dinner. Slavery. Trade. In the theater. Monasteries. London. Surprising reunion.

BORN TO JEWISH PARENTS in Ratzebor in Pomerania, I learned the trade of baker and confectioner and as a married man I followed that occupation in the market town of Flattow in West Prussia, in the administrative area of Marienwerder. Despite no lack of industry and economy, my financial condition kept deteriorating further and further, and the year 1848 rang its death knell. I left my wife and children with friends, and with only the most modest funds I traveled to Hamburg on May 1, 1849, in the company of my sister and brother-in-law. The parting from my loved ones was most painful, but I believed myself capable of the strength to earn enough in the new country to 'send for them fairly soon. After all, I was on my way to the powerful country which offers innumerable broad fields for speculation.

Due to the Danish blockade I traveled on the English sailship Commodore to Glasgow in Scotland, where additional English, Scottish and especially Irish passengers were taken on, so that there were about four hundred people on board. Here, too, the Irish stood out for their dreadful filthiness. They were full of those small animals, which live so happily on the heads of unclean children. On the whole our trip could be said to have been a good one. It is true that on the first day, to the enormous sorrow of their parents, we lost two children, who as siblings were dropped over the side into the quiet mirror of the ocean with the usual ceremonies. They were placed on a board, weighed down with cannon balls. All the rest remained healthy and after a journey of thirty days we saw New York lying before us on July 2, 1849.

Thus I reached the land so hotly yearned for by so many thousands, and my heart was beating in my breast in the most joyous jubilation. The many happy letters which flew like golden doves from the new world to Germany, and the emigration booklets which on board ship had deceitfully informed us how much each occupation could earn here, had raised my expectations not a little. So I landed with my ready money totaling three English shillings, but with so much greater hopes. With my first step on the famed land I was surrounded by complete drunkards, beggars, pushy porters, all in rags. Oh, how the wings of my hopes dropped! With approximately one Prussian thaler in my pocket, my brother-in-law with five, without one word of the prevailing language, here I stood now in America. When I turned and spoke in German to an earlier German immigrant, who was still wearing his German coat, he disdainfully replied to me in his broken English. The reason for the Germans not being regarded much more highly than the Irish and much less than the French lies mainly in the fact that they are ashamed of their national character and ape other nations. Generally they are thought of as honest and hardworking.

A hired servant guided us to Mulberry Street, where we rented a bare little room for five dollars a month, payable in advance. The sale of some silk scarves provided us with the cash we lacked. We spent our first night in America on the bedding which we had brought with us, and which for lack of bedsteads were spread on the floor. After a sleepless night of fear and worry I got up in the morning and wandered around the streets. In the colorful enormously busy activity I noted a dreadful want next to shining wealth and comfortable affluence. Oh, I will never forget the wornout figures with the thin yellow faces, which showed dashed hopes, hunger, illness and desperation! A deep pain constricted my heart and I began to despair for myself and for the world. Suddenly I found myself in front of a synagogue and a ray of light from heaven shone into my distressed soul.

"Go inside," a voice called to me. "Control yourself and find strength in God; you will make it yet."

There I met a former compatriot, who appeared to me as a saving angel in my deathly danger. Full of sincere pleasure and greatly surprised, he called out to me, "For heaven's sake, Abrahamsohn, how did you get here?"

"Heaven help you! Because I am here already three years and don't know where tomorrow's breakfast is to come from."

Of course this was no great consolation for me, and distress must have shown on my face, because he went on: "But something can be done here for bakers and confectioners. For that you go to the Bakers' Lodge in the next street. You will find it easily by the shield inscribed in English and German."

In this lodge, which was at the same time an inn of the lowest sort, I found between twenty and twenty-five unemployed people milling about in rundown clothes and in a condition which did not exactly make them appear as disciples of a total abstinence society. The innkeeper asked for two shillings for information about employment. My name would be put in a book, and when all these workmen who were already registered had found employment, it would be my turn. Good God! I had three ischillings in my pocket and was suppose to wait with one shilling, until all these people had found work. What was I supposed to live off of? I made up my mind quickly, took my leave, and after I had found out how to ask for work in English ("What work have you for a baker?"), I went to an English baker. I had already fruitlessly inquired of several German ones. However, when he found out that this was my total English, through words and gestures he gave me the cheerless information, that he could not use a baker with whom he could not speak.

On the street I ran into an old friend and Jewish tradesman, Michael Englander, born in Lobsens in West Prussia, who, when he heard my sad tale, suggested that I go to see a compatriot, Mister Isidor, a very rich Jewish merchant. He would certainly stand by me in word and deed.

It was high time that I found means of making a living. Although my brother-in-law had gotten work from a shoemaker, I could not and would not become a burden to him. Therefore I went to Mister Isidor in Pearl Street. He received me in very friendly fashion, introduced me to his wife, a very amiable lady, and sent for wine. He asked this and that about conditions in the old country, sympathetically got around to mine and finally suggested: "You are a baker and confectioner. Make candies and sell them in the streets."

"Oh heavenly Father," I exclaimed, "I am supposed to hawk candies from door to door, which is only done by broken-down old women in the homeland! Besides I have no money."

"Start with very little," said the good man smilingly, "And things will improve. You are in a country where there is no disgrace in any honest work. But listen, here is a draft on the merchant Schmidt, for which you will receive ten dollars worth of all kinds of soft goods. Farewell, and I cordially wish you luck for your first venture in America."

At Schmidt's I got for this draft pins and needles, thread, brushes, suspenders and other salable articles of this kind and carried them home in my kerchief. I cannot describe with what melancholy I looked down at my little bundle and how depressed I was by the memory that at home as a young man, I spent as much in one evening as I carried here to start my American fortune. I bought a small basket, put my goods into it and, carrying it on a ribbon .around my neck, early the next morning I went outside of the city proper into the third 'suburb. I was crying like a child from shame and grief. Street urchins teased and mocked me in every way. One even overturned my little basket and dropped all my things into the street. They made fun of my German threats and I did not understand them. I went into a drygoods store and offered my wares. But the German acted as if he could not understand me at all, and infuriated by such vile action I left him with the words: "You buttermilkhead! I can see from your eyes that you are a German, and you don't want to give me an answer?" A cabman called me into a stable, selected a brush as if he wanted to buy it, but found it too expensive and stole one. When I asked for the missing one back, he belabored me with a whip and threw me out of the stable.

With such omens I began my first business, and in order to chase away the growing despair and gain courage, contrary to my habits, I went into a grogshop and went on a real binge. Toward noon I cheerfully entered a beautiful home where due to the heat, a noble gentleman and his lady were resting in the hall. The American met me graciously, took some ribbon, a paper of pins, and a spool of thread, gave them to his wife and asked me in English how much it cost. I raised three fingers and received three dollars. All of a sudden I felt in a different mood, became full of happy confidence and said to myself: "Yes, America is and remains America ! " With this forward manner I continued my peddling on that day and by six in the evening I had made eleven dollars and still had more than one dollar's worth of goods. In three months I owned eighty dollars sheer profit, the debt to Mister Isidor had long been repaid, and I had a fine supply of merchandise. I regularly obtained it from Schmidt. I sent twenty-five dollars to my family as my first sign of life.

Now I had a good income and was able to lead a decent life. I made several nice friendships and joined two societies. Admission cost five dollars and there were weekly dues of one American shilling (about five silver pennies) to pay. If any member gets sick, he receives five dollars a week out of the society's fund, free medical care and medicines, and is visited by a brother, as members are called, who is to see that the patient does not lack for anything.

One morning early a deep bass voice called out: "Milk! Milk!" I was sure I had heard that voice before, looked out the window and saw a corpulent, six-feet-tall, about fifty-year-old man, the former Royal Prussian Attorney-at-Law, Baron von Patschkow (from Lobsens) on a milkcart. I ran outside and exclaimed: "For heaven's sake, Baron von Patschkow, what is the matter with you?"

With his deep bass voice and a self-satisfied mien he replied, "Nobility is in the dumps. I earn five dollars daily. My daughters sew vests for merchants for four dollars daily. As you can see, I am in better shape than a Prussian privy councillor."

Four weeks later I again met him on the wide street. One of his daughters had married a rich jeweler, and he no longer worked with a cart and milkcask.

Jaretzki, an old acquaintance from Nagel in West Prussia, who lived in Boston, met me in New York and gave me such splendid reports of earnings in his locality, that for twenty-five dollars I travelled there in a sailing ship. How ever, the man had deceived me with his glowing tales. He was poorer than I, and when I went peddling my wares, since I had no hawking permit, I was caught by the police and chased out of town. After a stay of fourteen days I again returned to New York for twenty-five dollars, where I arrived not much richer than on my first arrival.

Now it was a question of new activity. At my sister's lived a German Jew, who made a good living in the glazier's trade. He said to me, "Abrahamsohn, you can see that I am not doing badly. Buy a diamond, a little box of glass panes, and become a glazier with me. You will not be sorry."

I did it, going out with him at eight a. m., in order to learn the tricks of the trade. By eleven a. m. when I returned home, I had become a duly appointed master glazier, although I only knew how to install window panes. In the afternoon I already went out on my own, and between St. Michael's Day and New Year's, I had a surplus of one hundred fifty dollars, fifty of which I sent to my family. During the winter I earned very little, because too often during that time broken windows are just covered with paper and only provided with new panes in the spring, when solemn processions take place. Thus, on May 1 and 2, 1850, in twenty-four hours I earned more than forty dollars putting in panes.

At the beginning of June I went to Brooklyn, a beautiful city about one (English) mile away, in order to earn some money, and in a very beautiful home I saw a broken pane which I offered to replace for half a dollar.

"How can you work 'so cheaply?" the owner asked. "All my previous glaziers were much more expensive."

"Well, in that case, we shall do more business together," he said, and the next day he took me outside the city, where he was having homes built for sale. I made a contract with Mr. Pimann, as the gentleman was called, for the windows of six houses, hired four real journeymen glaziers who knew how to make everything connected with the windows, built the workshop in the houses themselves, and quickly started to work. Between June 15 and January 1, I made a clear profit of twelve hundred dollars. Mister Pimann, whose complete satisfaction I had earned, gave up his business. With such an income I liked the life in the new world, and I found I could live decently and cheaply both in private homes and at inns. Money there does not have nearly the value it has with us and things that in Prussia I bought for a penny, cost a shilling. But as one can see, work is much better paid, and food is very substantial. If I may use the expression, it fits the free American and suits his character. An ordinary breakfast, more or less, consists of coffee, beefsteak, fish, boiled eggs and bread and butter. At lunch there are gently steamed or baked fish, a hearty underdone roast of beef, venison of deer and buck, excellent chicken and other poultry in generous profusion. French and Spanish wines season the meal as well as locally brewed beer of all kinds, even Berlin light beer, and reminds one of home. Thus a certain Schwalbe, who had started his brewing in a wash bucket, owned a Bavarian brewery with a yearly volume of one million dollars. More than two hundred German Democrats visited it daily.

In possession of such an imposing sum my old German pride awoke again, and I though it too demeaning and lowly to walk through the streets with my little box of panes to examine the windows for work.

I rented a store in Green Street near the vinegar market and started a clothing business, a type of business which I considered more noble and profitable. But with it, I went from the donkey to the dog (from the frying pan into the fire trans.) . After one-month I had made exactly as much as I needed for living expenses, and I had to sell a portion of my goods at auction in order to have money for the store and room rent, .and for the projected trip to California. Because I saw that with this business I would never have anything left over and thus could not have my family join me.

Everywhere, everywhere one heard the fame of the newly discovered land of gold, and how so many people had quickly and easily become rich there. Everywhere the astonished eye saw people who, coming from there, showed large chunks of gold or carried them braggingly around their necks, and who lived in grand style. I still had nine hundred dollars worth of goods and one hundred fifty dollars in cash. I packed the goods in boxes and sent them insured, on a sailing ship around Cape Horn to San Francisco. On January 13, 1851, I myself went aboard the steamer Christian City, and after a good trip I reached Chagris on the Isthmus of Panama, which joins North and South America. Our trip was not to go around the southern tip of America, Cape Horn, but over said Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific or Great Ocean, where we were sure to find ships to transport us to California. The heat affected us very strongly in Chagris, and Indians who live there in huts made of sugar cane, took us in canoes made from hollowed logs upstream to Grakun, where there also are Indians living in cane huts. Worn out from the difficulties of the trip and the glowing heat, we fell asleep in the alleys of the village, but were woken up in the night by dreadful cries and noises. Several huts were going up in flames and after a few minutes the whole place. The copperred Indians were running around like black goblins, trying to save what they could of their miserable possessions. After a quarter-hour the whole village was in ashes. This was at the beginning of March.

In the morning forty of us took off on mules, the rent of which cost some eight dollars, and went over rocky mountains to Panama. A really hellish heat lay over the Spanish-built town with its stone houses and flat roofs, and yellow fever was raging. To increase our sorry state, there was no ship in the harbor to transport us. We had to wait there three weeks, and several hundred people from almost all nations of the world with us. Thus it happened that food supplies were very expensive and when the longed-for ships finally arrived, I no longer had enough money for the passage. Although I carried glass and my diamond with me, I was unable to earn anything, as none of the houses there had any windows, only wooden venetian blinds. I was in a desperate situation, and for a long time I went fruitlessly onto the ships, trying to find work for my fare. Finally I had the great luck of finding a place as dishwasher and bootblack for first class, on the steamer Golden Gate, with eighty passengers traveling on it.

About Panama, I just wish to mention a large magnificent Catholic church, which had so much gold, silver and precious stones glowing in its rooms, that the eyes of the beholder hurt.

In a few days we left the harbor and sailed northward toward California. I was kept extraordinarily busy. After I had worn myself out during the day with plates and other cooking utensils, I had to spend every night cleaning so many shoes. But I was treated well and I had plenty to eat from the leftovers and enough to give to other steerage passengers, for which they gladly helped me with my work. During the storm-free trip an old Jew died and was buried at sea according to Jewish religious customs. The Captain took charge of his belongings and later sent them to the family in St. Louis.

On April 8, 1851, the morning sun 'shone with such golden glow on the partly bare, partly green, very high mountains with magnificent cedars on them behind San Francisco, that we greeted them jubilantly in the happy certainty of the riches they contained. At ten o'clock the anchor was dropped while we yelled "Hurray" and the cannon were shot off. We were among a large number of ships from almost all the seafaring nations, and with warm memories of our homeland we greeted the flags of merchants from Bremen and Hamburg, which were fluttering gaily in the fresh morning breeze. The customs officers soon appeared in a steamer, to collect the dues for declarable items, and the doctor to examine our health. All the passengers went ashore on the same day, but I still had dishes to wash and followed the next morning.

I STEPPED ON LAND and entered the city, my breast swelling with golden hopes, and took lodgings at the inn on the long wharf, a large board structure, until I could find the opportunity to rent a store. Thus I had time to look around the city.

Except for some massive public buildings there was no trace here of houses as we are used to seeing in Europe. Frameworks of narrow boards and lath, with fiber-thin multi-colored cotton drawn over the sides and top, most of the time a firm name in enormous letters over the entrance. These were the homes of the people. The unpaved streets must be bottomless during periods of rain, and near the huts they mostly had ladder-like steps made of old barrel staves. A short time later they were completely boarded. On them, even during the night, openly, lay huge mounds of all kinds of goods, and since punishment for theft consisted without ado of the gallows, and for small thefts of whippings and the cutting off of ears, one rarely heard of thefts. Such severity, however, is completely necessary in view of the huge amount of goods arriving here, and up in the gold mines the lynch law reigns with the quickest justice, as we shall see farther on. The huts are expensive due to the exorbitantly high prices of the lumber, which has to be brought from a distance by ships.

On all the faces of the people I saw, as well as in their demeanor and their busy work, I clearly read the desire to become rich quickly in order to leave their Eldorado even more quickly. Many people were proudly and triumphantly wandering through the streets with large pieces of gold, which looked like yellow iron dross, or with bags full of gold grains in their hands. They had come from the mines in order to lose their either hard or easily acquired winnings in the gambling halls in one night, and then have the pleasure of grubbing again for the yellow metal in the mountains.

The city was filled to excess with large gambling houses, whose presence was indicated by loud music. They sought to make the passerby curious with drums, trumpets, violins, flutes and guitars, and those that entered were tempted with piles of silver and especially gold coins. whenever these instruments made a deafening noise, one became downright cheerful. Many of my compatriots appeared in such houses as musicians, especially on the flute and the guitar. Beautiful girls, for the most part French, but also brown, black-eyed Mexicans, with perfumed flowers in their hair and on their bosom, flirted with word, smile and look, and in each gambling hall they offered to everyone who entered, ale, port, various wines, punch and grog, white bread, butter, cheese, all of it for free. The games were faro, twenty-one, dice, roulette and monte, a Mexican game resembling lansquenet.

The gambling places, like the restaurants, fancy-goods stores, coffee houses and fine bakeries were for the most part run by Frenchmen. Among the many Germans there were several respectable stores. Jews generally were in the clothing business, and the Chinese, of whom there were not a few, ran eating places which were heavily patronized due to their respectability and cheapness. The population of the city, the majority of which is from the United States, could not be determined due to the coming and going. But while I was there it must have been around 30,000 souls.

Labor, rent and food were enormously expensive. A day laborer received six dollars a day, a workman ten to eighteen, and a waiter over one hundred dollars a month. A wooden partition called a room cost twenty to thirty dollars, storage for a trunk one to two dollars, and one was lucky to find one-self under a roof, that is, under a canvas cover. The price of goods and food stuffs varied according to sometimes large, sometimes scant supplies, but was always high, and one can imagine the rest when one knows that I had to pay one dollar for an egg.

My goods finally arrived on April 15 on the sailing ship Schallhorn, and now I rented a lodging for thirty dollars a month. It consisted of four bare board walls, covered on the inside with colored paper. The board floor had cracks into

which one could place a finger, the roof of sailcloth protected against sunburn and barely against rain. The hut stood on the long wharf, which stretched a half mile into the sea and when the tide was high, the salt water splashed into my habitation. I soon had unpacked my crates, had decorated the store with clothes, and already the first day of my new business I took in eighty-six dollars with a considerable profit. Since my business was going well, I soon found it necessary to go to a wholesaler every night to replace the goods which had been sold out. I was soon able to send one hundred dollars to my wife through Davidson, the local agent of the London Rothschilds, and at the same time give her the resounding news that I was in California. Until now I had kept from doing so, in order to keep from worrying her. In addition, I owned a well assorted stock of merchandise.

However, my luck was not to last long. On the first of May, a day which is often fateful in my life, a fire broke out at two a. m. at my next-door neighbor's, and due to the construction of the light tinder-dry wooden structures, it spread with such lightning speed that when the cry of alarm woke me out of a gentle sleep, I only had time to jump out of the window of my burning house in my underwear. Despite the frantic efforts of the inhabitants, despite the fact that whole rows of houses were torn down to stop the flames even the board walks turned to glowing coals all of San Francisco except for ten or twelve houses burned down in a few hours. Just the night before I had spent all my money for new merchandise, and now I was burned out, becoming a beggar without clothes. Thus I stood despairingly in the strange town, the seat of greediness, gold mania, and the most insensitive self-interest. All around me ashes, destruction and poverty. At this moment, a really good friend stood by me in my hour of need. Saul from Markolni, in the Dukedom of Posen, offered me the necessary clothes, pants, boots, a blue woolen overshirt, a wool blanket, a cap, a leather belt, a pick, spade, tin pan, a strong wide knife, and he said, "Abrahamsohn, you have no other choice but to go to the mines and seek your fortune. Here is ten dollars for travel money and my best wishes for a happy reunion."

I well knew that digging for gold was not such an easy job, and that now I would have to do what in Germany the stone crushers do in the sweat of their brow. But necessity forced me to bite into the sour apple. I joined nine companions and travelled with them to the mountains, glowing in the blue distance, toward the gold mines. Wherever the eye looked, there was such a glory of colorful flowers that one cannot imagine it. By night the sky was our tent, the woolen blanket our bed.

On the second night we lay under a mighty, hollow, but still leafy oak tree. Soon there was a roaring fire for the preparation of the customary coffee and the scanty evening meal in tin dishes. I went to a creek to get water. Suddenly there was a scream of terror from the mouths of my companions. I looked around and saw a large grey bear (grizzly) run over several of them and away. Our fright was great, because the animal is generally considered the wildest in the country. Trustworthy people told me the following about the abominable bear, as it is also known. Stronger and wilder than the black bear, it reaches a length of nine feet, a weight of twelve to fifteen hundred pounds, has enormous paws with long sharp claws, a long-haired dark brown fur with paler tips and it lives off animals, and where they are lacking, off berries and roots. The Indians and the colonists dread it as the most daring and dangerous beast of prey, which can run a race with the buffalo. When irritated it daringly makes for the hunter, and to conquer it with Bowie knife takes much skill and strength. The redskins wear its claws around the neck as a token of courage and scare their children with it. Our sleeping neighbor had hidden itself in the hollow oak, and frightened by the noise and fire, had crawled out and suddenly fallen among my companions. To all appearances it was a young one. During the night we were disturbed by the howling of the coyotes, a type of jackal, which live under ground. They are not much larger than our fox.

On the third day we reached the mountains and came to Beavertown, a locality consisting of the scattered tents of miners or gold diggers, where many stores or sales tents had the red, white and blue flags of the United States waving overhead. The curse of San Francisco, the gambling houses, appeared here, too, and since silver coins were extremely rare, the gambling was done with weighed gold grains. About one hundred men were working in a circumference of one mile. Here I bought an axe and coarse linen for a tent, took leave of my companions in order to dig on my own, and went into the upper end of a mountain gorge, the lower one having already been dug up, and there I found several hundred miners working. My first job was to build myself a dwelling. My axe provided me with three posts, over which I spread the sailcloth, and leaves stripped from the trees together with my blanket provided my bed. The law made by the workers themselves says that everyone has the undivided right to dig on a spot sixteen feet long by eight feet wide and with three feet for throwing out the dirt, and to go down as far as he wants, and then he may look for another. One usually digs down sixteen to twenty-six feet, where the gold may be found in claylike white or blue earth, but occasionally one already finds it in the upper sandy layers. Incidentally, some diggings went down forty to one hundred feet. After I had broken up the upper layer with the pick and thrown out the dirt with the shovel, I carried that clay in a sack for a half mile to a brook, put some of it into the flat pan, placed it in the water, and the heavy gold remained behind. It consisted of flakes, also grains and larger pieces. On the average the daily take is one ounce or sixteen dollars, the lowest amount three dollars, if there is any gold at all. Many workers earn nothing. On the first day I made enough to enable me to go into the nearby stores, where one can obtain food and drink, clothing and many kinds of tools for exorbitant prices. I bought one pound of salt, one pound of sugar, one-half pound of tea (for one dollar), four pounds of potatoes, two pounds of beef and eight pounds of flour. Naturally, the price is determined by the at times large, at times scant, supply of provilions, as well as by the number of miners. One can judge how high the prices are, that one pound of wheat flour, no other being available, costs three-quarters to one dollar, a pound of salt one dollar, a pound of beef two dollars, a small glass of whiskey in a bar forty-five cents, later twenty-five cents or thirty-five groats.

With this purchase I was provisioned for a week. The flour, prepared with water and without leaven, I made into flat round cakes and baked them in the hot ashes.

My surroundings were magnificent. The herb rich fragrant mountains have their sides covered with all kinds of evergreens, alders and hazelnut bushes, and on the heights there are splendid cedars or redwood trees and oaks, on which spotted wildcats and panthers lie in wait for passing deer and rabbits. Bushy partridges pass through the thickets, and larks climb into the beautiful blue sky and wake me to my laborious work.

(Originally continued in the July, 1969 Quarterly. Actually continues below.)

AFTER EIGHT DAYS, when I was heartily tired of working alone, I joined company with a journeyman wheelwright from Swabia. In a temperature almost glowing with heat, I took the earth down the steep mountain to the creek in a wheel-barrow. Due to the excessive strain of the work, my eyes became bloodshot and my hands so sore, that every night I had to soak them in a bowl of water to cool them off somewhat and lessen the pain. Oh, how I kept thinking of my confectioner's work in Germany! I labored thus for three months and after deducting the expenses of the provisions, my share came to forty dollars of straight profit.

One Sunday, when I was on my way to a village called Hinktown, two miles from our dwelling, a large strong man with a respectable face stepped into my path and said in an Irish dialect to me: "Be so good as to give me a piece of your liver." I laughed aloud at this strange request.

Then I took him seriously, and reached into my pocket as if to pull out a pistol. But the Irishman did not wait and took to his heels with the cry, "I was only joking!"

Due to the large number of scoundrels and the unspeakable gambling fever, there was great insecurity in the mines, and every day one heard about workers and merchants who had been killed, mostly in their sleep, and robbed. One morning, one of them cut open the tent of a sleeping Jew who had a clothing business, and took a red woolen shirt, a handkerchief and a pair of pants. The man awakened, screamed, and ran after the escaping Mexican. Men came out of their tents and the thief, who was obviously caught in the act of stealing, was forthwith hanged from a nearby tree.

A doctor had a gambling hall. A drunken Irishman, married, and father of five children, lost his last dollar there and begged the owner for a loan so that he could continue playing. When the gambling house proprietor refused, the man, in a clearly incensed condition, became so insistent that the furious doctor pulled his bowie knife and drove it fatally into the man's body below the navel. I caught the falling Irishman in my arms, but the doctor got away by fleeing during the ensuing excitement.

How gold and gambling dehumanize men can also be seen from the following. Frequently workers are buried by the overhang when digging deeply. However, in the nearby pits, digging continues as if nothing had happened.

One day I received a letter from a journeyman tailor. originally from Posen, named Harris, who lived in Sacramento City, and to whom I had loaned twenty dollars in New York for the trip to California. He had heard that I was working in the mines, and invited me to join him, as he was doing well.

Since I had long been tired of the terribly hard work that brought me in such a pittance, I decided to heed the inviting call from my friend, sold my implements, provided myself with food supplies and departed after a cordial farewell from my comrades. On the march, I saw and met the first California Indians.

They were copper-brown, short and stocky in build, sometimes naked, sometimes wrapped in a blanket, others again in shirt, pants, vests and cap, with a red sash tied around the waist. The more vivid the colors, the better they liked them. They had black eyes, a blue tatoo on the chin, noble noses and their long black hair was decorated with needles, feathers and glass beads. Their mien was generally good-humored and trustworthy. Weapons: very cleverly worked bows and arrows, also rifles.

Their women, squaws, some of them with attractive figures and pleasant faces, only wore a breechcloth, occasionally also brightly colored cotton capes. They gather and prepare the food. Whenever they can, the redskins beg white men for food supplies and other presents. Pomeranian-type dogs are their constant companions and are used very successfully on the hunt. They adore brandy, which is the deadly poison of the redskin. It weakens their otherwise feeble ability to procreate, and the day is not far off, when the last Indian will be sorrowing at the graves of his vanished people. Their speech consists of extremely rapid gargling sounds, which among those living on the coast are mixed with Spanish words.

Sacramento City lies northeast of San Francisco on the quite noteworthy, heavily travelled Sacramento River, separated from it by a grove of tall trees, and like San Francisco, it consisted of tents and board huts, which were spread under the trees. I soon found the tailor, locating him in about a ten-foot square room, sitting on a rough table and busily wielding the needle. With a quick jump he hung himself around my neck and exclaimed: "Are you finally here, Abrahamsohn?"

"As you see, body and soul," I replied, "But say, what kind of profitable business are you running here?"

"Well, I mend old clothes, the pants and jackets and shirts of all the nations on earth," said Harris, while looking at me with a certain amount of enthusiasm.

"And what shall I do then, who do not even know how to sew on a button?" I asked dejectedly, because my heart had dropped to my boots.

"Oh, a whole lot, my dear friend! You go from house to house and ask if there are any clothes to be fixed. You recommend me as one of the best men in this field. You pick up the clothes and later take them back to the customers."

"But my good God," I exclaimed, "Here I am, away from home for more than two years, living in America and moreover in gold-rich California. Am I supposed to do something like that?"

"Well, what have you earned so far in the mines? Nothing! And on top of that, you got sunburned and endured every privation and misery. And who knows you here? And even then, aren't you in America, where no work disgraces? Abrahamsohn, Abrahamsohn, truly, I would have thought you were smarter than that."

I made a decision, taking on courage in a saloon, and went after customers. Since I found many, after three weeks I had earned ninety-two dollars, and this very easily. I ran and recommended, the tailor did the mending. However, the man with the needle and scissors began to treat me shabbily in many ways. Sometimes I had accepted work too cheaply, whereby he suspected that I was in on the profit, sometimes too dearly, whereby he lost customers, and he feared he would lose his precious reputation as a tailor. Finally, I could no longer do anything right, 'so I gave him half of the earnings, which I had in custody, and demanded the return of the twenty dollars I had loaned him in New York. He replied that through him alone I had earned ninety-two dollars and would not receive one cent more from him, and then that long-legged black widow spider threw me out the door.

I knew in my heart that I had worked honestly for him and had not cheated him out of a penny, and thus thought of revenge. There was a vacant dwelling across from him. I rented it, and put a board above the door with "Pressing, Tailoring and Mending" in huge letters. During the day I went after customers. The old ones knew me already. At night I cleaned the clothes and repaired them, because I had, after all, learned quite a few tricks from the mean tailor. After six weeks I had earned almost three hundred dollars. My opponent on the other hand, who could have burst from anger, had almost no customers left. He took to drink and gambling and thus was lost. Soon I had all the business in my hands.

Once I was quite embarrassed by the skill imputed to me, but I saved myself through audacity. A rich merchant had sent for me and given me a coat, which he wanted relined with silk. I went to work with a will, but since I did not know how to do fine sewing, the stitches were a mile long. When the gentleman saw the coat, he shook his head and said: "My grandmother could have done it as well."

But proudly, I replied, "I am not here to do fine sewing, but to earn money." The merchant stared into my face for a moment, then smilingly slapped me on the shoulder and said, "You are a clever soul and will go far."

ONE DAY, many stores carried signs that said that in a garden outside of town, there would be a fight between a grizzly bear and a bull. Curious to see such a battle, a great pleasure for Americans, I paid the admission fee of one dollar and found several thousand spectators present. On the battleground, which was covered with gravel, was a powerful black bull. His leg was attached to a bear, which was in a cage, by means of a chain ten yards long. With eyes glowing from rage, the bull stared at its opponent, pawed the sand into a cloud and sank its horns to the ground.

Barely was the cage opened, when the bear ran out growling, jumping on the head of the bull and ripped its mouth bloody, so that it screamed in agony and used all its strength to shake off its enemy. After shaking off the bear, the bull attacked it with its horns with such fury, that the former howled miserably and tried to escape, but was prevented by the chain.

There is no describing the shouts of joy that arose from the ?spectators to this frightful game. As are the hearts of men, so are their amusements. There were people on all the surrounding large trees, who wanted to see the powerful spectacle clearly, and toward one of these, occupied by twenty to thirty men the bear turned, in fear of death, and tried desperately to climb the trunk.

The spectators on it were terribly frightened and screamed: "Off with the bear! Drag off the bear!" Some of them jumped down and got away with broken bones. The mass of people, however, could not stop laughing and screaming at such a joke, and clapped their hands. But then the bull came to the aid of the scared ones. With a jerk it dragged back the bear, threw itself on the animal which was lying on its back and dug into its body, until the bloody entrails hung from its horns.

After this cynosure for the eyes, two boxers appeared, who artfully belabored each other for a while with their fists, until one called, "I can't go on ! " He had received such a blow on the eye, that right there on the battleground, the doctor opened and drained the swelling. Trumpets and drums had for some hours accompanied this edifying spectacle.

A Jewish clothing merchant, Green, had a very beautiful wife, who gave him three children, and whom he loved faithfully and well. A certain Baker, unmarried, and also Jewish, was his buddy, and anyone who doubted his goodness would have been in trouble with Green.

One day the oldest boy whispered to his father, that he had seen Mr. Baker kiss his mama. "Boy," the father said smiling, "You are not in your right mind and have not seen correctly. Don't let your mother hear such a thing, or she will be very mad at you."

But the next day the boy again went to his father and said, "It is still true, what I said yesterday, Dad. Today again, Mr. Baker kissed mama, quite a few times."

Green became pale at these words of innocence. The scales fell from his eyes and he made his plans. He told his wife and his faithless friend that due to important business, he would have to leave the same day for San Francisco, and that he felt safe in leaving all at home in good hands. Then he went to a discreet friend and asked him to invite his wife and his friend to the theater for the same night. He said that he himself would have plans for the evening, and did not want to be disturbed.

The friend, who thought Green wanted to give his wife a pleasant surprise, agreed, and did as he was asked. The betrayed husband, however, crept into his home at night, with knife and pistol, and hid under the bed. After some hours the wife and Baker came in, exclaiming in delight at finally having some hours free and safe from the husband, and were just about to give in to their unbridled passion, when Green crept out and suddenly stood like an avenging fury in front of them with his pistol. Baker ran into the store, Green after him, and there he shot him down as he was trying to get out of the door. He divorced his wife, and no action was taken against him for his deed, which was considered an act of justice.

A still pretty Mexican woman, as all of this race are, had a tavern, where wines, fine liquors and other sweets were to be had. But the sweetest and prettiest thing in it was her daughter, a fourteen-year-old girl with great sparkling black eyes, luxurious blue-black braids, a brownish complexion, a well-developed bust, a lovely waist, with such dainty hands and feet and such charm and gracious behavior as can only be found among the daughters of this land, who almost all possess these enticing attributes.

With this charming and marriageable child a young Englishman had fallen hopelessly in love, and for this reason was a daily and persistent visitor at this inn. The mother had no objections to the suit of this young man, provided his intentions were serious, that is, that he intended marriage. But since she noticed that he only had base intentions, she treated him coldly and one day, when her daughter told her of some shameful suggestions he had made, she became furious at the insult and forbade him ever to visit the tavern again if he valued his life.

The Englishman left laughing and joking and the next morning had barely reentered the tavern, when a pistol shot went through his heart. Since the Mexican woman had only defended her own and her daughter's honor, she was set free, although normally the Mexicans were not well thought of.

One afternoon, not far from the grove that separates Sacramento City from the river, there sat in a tavern an Irishman, a Scot and a lanky Yankee in brotherly harmony with a glass of ale, and they were merry and of good cheer. The features of all three showed clearly that life had held for them a mixture of both good and bad, and that the latter had won the upper hand more than once. California in those times, had a great abundance of such scoundrels.

A man just fresh out of the mines sat down by them, and as an inexperienced fellow, he took great pleasure from the conversation, called for liquor and treated his new acquaintances. When the liquor went to his head, he bragged about his great riches and inquired about a pretty girl.

The Yankee, Robertson, said that he knew a very beautiful liberal Mexican lady, a wonderful example of a brown senorita. She lived nearby among the trees, and the new friend could there seek his luck. The miner asked the Yank to accompany him and both went on their way. When they had arrived in the bushes, the drunk was attacked by the others who had crept there, thrown down and tied up. The three robbers searched him, but found only twenty-five dollars. Fortunately for the miner there were people in the vicinity. They heard his call for help, chased the escaping robbers, caught them, and on the very same day the three fruit hung from the trees under which they had done their deed.

Already in Germany, I had practiced the circumcision of Jewish boys, an honorable, God-pleasing office, which there is unpaid. A Jew from Regensburg knew this. He lived in San Francisco and had seen my certificate indicating that I was qualified. He sent for me to come to circumcise his son. For this I received sixty dollars and ten for travel expenses, as well as numerous commissions. I travelled back to Sacramento City, sold everything that I could spare, and became a duly installed mohel in San Francisco, Where I received fifty dollars per child and through my religious position gained entry into the richest and noblest families. Since the Jews in that city rivaled, in the increase of their descendants, their ancestors in Egypt, I had a lot of work, and in about a half a year, after deducting living expenses, I had put by eight hundred dollars.

My total fortune consisted of twelve hundred dollars, and with this I now decided to earn high interest. Within twenty-four hours I had built a board house, according to California style, on the long wharf, had furnished it with tables, chairs, mirrors, shiny spreads, plates, bottles, glasses, etc. and a restaurant was ready. I had a French cook, three waiters, and a boy washing dishes, and the thusequipped eating establishment was here considered excellent, although in Germany no respectable man would have entered it. With many diners and the job as circumciser, I made out extremely well, even though the pay of my waiters was very high.

A FOOLISH MAN will entrust his whole painfully acquired wealth to the stormy treacherous sea, the ship sinks, and he stands on shore wringing his hands. I turned everything I had into the restaurant and its furnishings, and on the morning of April 1, 1852, the cry of ire filled the city, and after a half hour all my property had been burned. «hat had been saved had caught fire on the boardwalk or had been broken in the turmoil, and I had nothing but my clothes and one hundred fifty dollars. A good part of the city burned down, but after only eight days there was nothing left of the destruction. Everywhere, new and better homes had been built, and from the gambling houses once again was heard the sound of violins and guitars and the cold monotonous calls of gains or losses.

I had moved in with a German missionary, who had given up his calling and sought his luck in the gold fields. Then, for the first time during my stay in California, in my desperation, I gave in to a passion which had been completely alien to me. To force my luck I started to gamble, and in one night I lost all my money. The next day I had a circumcision, and the fee disappeared that night on the green tables. Thus, dissatisfied with myself, I lived a perfectly hellish life contrary to my better instincts, and even though I made the best resolutions during the day, in the evening those cursed houses drew me back as with magic strength whenever I had any money.

A Jewish acquaintance of mine expected to earn a lot of money in the clothing trade in the then noteworthy mining town of Mokelumne Hill, and since he needed a helper, I went off with him. By steamer we travelled to the foremost mining town in the south, Stockton, in fourteen hours at twenty dollars per person.

When after lunch I left the dining saloon, I saw on the foredeck a young Polish Jew, whose face and bearing indicated illness and misery. Under the impression that he had no money, I asked him sympathetically whether he had eaten lunch, and when he said no, I encouraged him to go into the saloon, telling him that I would pay for it. He did so and I then learned that he too was going to Mokelumne Hill, in order to join a companion there who was buying gold.

This place consisted of canvas tents down to the Mokelumne River, which for coolness' sake were covered with green branches. We built a canvas store and the clothing business had its start. Here too, every third tent was a saloon or a gambling hall. They all were heavily patronized in the evenings, as most of the miners took a lot out of the pits.

The sickly young man lived in a tent with his companion, also a Polish Jew, and the latter had already purchased eleven hundred dollars worth of pure gold, which he kept in a leather bag in a box. One evening, when both of them were in a near-by saloon, in which German waltzes and songs from an accordion were enthusiastically received, the sickly one secretly left, cut a hole in his tent, broke open the box with an ax, hid his companion's gold in a safe place and returned unnoticed to the saloon. One can imagine the alarm of the older Jew, when with his companion he found his tent cut and the sack of gold stolen. He right away set up a hullabaloo.

The suspicion of theft fell on a Mexican neighbor, and despite the fact that nothing incriminating could be found against him, the next morning the majority of the miners chosen as judges (committee), decreed that he should be hanged. However, one of them with more sense spoke up and declared, that without sufficient evidence, which here was completely lacking, mob-justice should not be carried out. He continued by saying that it has happened, and may be the case here, that the Jew who claims it, has not really been robbed and is only making a big outcry. "Men, let us inquire in San Francisco whether these Jews have debts there or not! If they don't have any, then in God's name let's hang the Mexican. Until it is settled, however, keep him in custody."

This advice was considered good. A day later the thief suggested to the victim that he travel to San Francisco and secretly alert the firms where gold is bought, to look out for the man who would bring in for exchange the Mexican's eleven hundred dollars in gold. The older Pole found reassuring hope in this advice and the younger one left. There, however, he turned the stolen gold over to the agent of Rothschild, Davidson, and received a receipt for it. Then he returned and assured his companion that he had taken care of everything in the respective firms.

When both went to sleep that night, the thief pushed his pants under his head before going to sleep, something he had never done before. The other one noticed this, and he also had begun to have some rather suspicious thoughts about the honesty of his companion. So he gently pulled the pants out from under the travel-tired heavy sleeper, checked through them carefully and thus found the receipt from Davidson for the eleven hundred dollars in gold.

At daybreak he called together the committee. These saw the proof of the theft, sent for the still sleeping thief, had his head shaved, tied him to a tree, and the Mexican had to give him sixty carvings. Then he was given the serious advice that if he valued his neck, he was to leave the country immediately.

After selling our clothing we returned to San Francisco. Passover was approaching, and in the newspapers there was an advertisement for a man who was thoroughly capable of baking mazzos. I went to the Jewish baker Isaacs, who was seeking the assistant, and for a daily wage of eight dollars and found (I was still living at the missionary's), I pushed mazzos in the oven and baked them from six a. m. to six p. m. The last day before Passover I was given five dollars for a half day, and put it into safe keeping. The earlier daily wages had gone to the green tables.

On the second day of Passover, with my saved five dollars in my pocket, I went for a walk to the harbor where a beached iron boat was to be auctioned off. An American company had sent it here, then had gone bankrupt, and now it was to be sold for the storage money owed. From some special itch due to high spirits or craziness, call it what you will, I first offered twenty-five dollars, bid higher, and to my great alarm it was knocked down to me for seventy-five dollars.

How was I to pay for the boat? Certainly not with my five dollars! And this had to be paid for at the auctioner's office the same day, since the condition was that it should be removed before night. I could have let the boat go, but my name had been noted and I would certainly have been heckled with pointed ridicule in the newspapers.

The boat had screws and a copper pump, things of value. I gave instructions to the owner of a nearby hut, that if anyone during my absence should show up and indicate an interest in the boat, he could let him have it for one hundred fifty dollars. I went to an iron foundry outside of town, offered my boat for sale and was told by the owner that he would come in an hour and look at it. When I returned, it had been sold for the fixed one hundred fifty dollars.

I immediately paid the seventy-five dollars, the boat was turned over to me through a bill-of-sale, which I turned over to the new owner. While I was still talking with him, the owner of the foundry showed up and when he heard of the sale, he said: "I am sorry. I would have given you three hundred dollars and even more on the spot, because the boat is worth a thousand dollars. Luck is not on your side." Thus, through my haste, I had only made a profit of seventy-five dollars and was not a little angry.

The thought that my luck was not to be found in California, and that it would be best for me to leave it immediately and sail to Australia, had ripened into a firm decision. The newspapers, which were extravagantly praising the gold mines there, the missionary who continuously urged me to travel there, the gambling curse, which threatened not to leave me here, all were equally weighty warnings. I paid seventy dollars for passage on an English sailing ship to Sidney, on the coast of New South Wales in Australia, or, as it is usually called in Germany, New Holland, and left San Francisco Bay in May (1852) with approximately two hundred passengers. They were mostly Californians who had failed, people who had sought their fortune here in vain.

This both faithful and brief account of my doings and activities in Northern California, gives enough information on the life, customs and inhabitants of that place. I can freely advise anyone to go to California who has a strong, healthy body, knows how to bear hardships and deprivations, and is not afraid of a hard day's work. But anyone who thinks that roast pigeons are flying around here on golden wings, just waiting to be plucked and eaten, should stay at home. I saw quite a few such unfortunates.

The great fertility of the country, especially in the south, invites farming and gardening which, however, during my stay, had been badly neglected. Potatoes, melons, all kinds of vegetables and other produce are raised. Beef cattle graze in large herds and are not put into stables at any season. California will become a really blessed land once the gold fever has abated, and when in addition to farming, social life, trade, crafts, science and arts will flourish.

A Western States Jewish History Anecdote

"PUNGLE DOWN THE TIN"
1852

MARRIED. Our amiable friend the Padre, last week joined in the holy bonds of matrimony, Mr. R. D. Israel and Senorita Mary Arcadia A. la Paz. We believe this is the first instance, in the State of California, where a Catholic Padre has united in marriage a member of his own church and one of the children of Israel !

O 'twas a joyful sound to hear
That good old Padre say,
Come, Israel, "pungle down" the "tin,"
And take the bride away !

--From the Supplement to the San Diego Herald,
August 24, 1852 (Vol. II, No. 8), p. 3, col. 2.

Another Western States Jewish History Newspaper Anecdote

WHAT THE JEWS DO
1865

During the late presidential campaign it was constantly iterated and reiterated by those who designedly endeavored to array the Hebrews as antagonistic to the administration and even to the Union, and stated, that the Jews only confined themselves to mere money changing and certain branches of commercial business, the principal line of which was ready-made clothing. Our people were stigmatized as usurers, and non-producers. In no State of the Union do the Jews represent so many different avocations, trades, etc., than in California.

They are farmers, wine-growers, wool-growers, rancheros, herdsmen, dealing in cattle and sheep; they are manufacturers on a large scale, and but for their energy and wealth the woolen factories of San Francisco would not be the proud monuments of our State's greatest growing interest. In the mechanical arts they have always taken a forward position, workers in iron, tin, silver and gold; carpenters, cabinet-makers, machinists, black and white-smiths, and scientific instrument makers. In all walks of science, physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, chemists, assayers, geologists, pathologists, etymologists and astronomers; divines, theologists, lawyers, editors, engravers, lithographers, musicians, artists and painters; professors of foreign tongues; arithmeticians, poets, printers, gymnasts, and sailors. Scarce a branch of mechanical art or avenue of trade but we find representatives of our race, and they are men and women of mark in all. In addition to these are miners, capitalists and merchants.

Who now will attempt to gainsay that the Hebrew people do not form a prominent integral part of the great commonwealth of California? To this is to be added that the Hebrew is not a nomad. When once he settles in California he becomes a resident, identified and aiding in its progress. He marries, gathers around him a family, strives to be and is honest, and his perseverance and probity are notable in this age of selfishness, so he lives his alotted days under his "own vine and fig tree," surrounded by his olive branches, until his days have passed and he is called to his "Father above." Take Hebrew energy and capital from California and the State would be bankrupt.

— From The Hebrew, San Francisco, Calif.,
January 27, 1865, (Vol. 2, No. 7), p. 4, col. 2,
by the editor and publisher, Philo Jacoby.