CHAPTER XII
SAN FRANCISCO IN TRANSITION
By the mid-fifties San Francisco had attained the dimensions of a city.
Among other changes of public interest within the brief space of two or
three years were a hospital, a library, a cemetery, several churches,
public markets, bathing establishments, public schools, two
race-courses, twelve wharves, five hundred and thirty-seven saloons, and
about eight thousand women of several classes. The population was now
about fifty thousand. The city was now of a fairly substantial
character, at least in the down-town districts. There were many
structures of brick and stone. In many directions the sand-hills had
been conveniently graded down by means of a power shovel called the
Steam Paddy in contradistinction to the hand Paddy, or Irishman with a
shovel. The streets were driven straight ahead regardless of contours.
It is related that often the inhabitants of houses perched on the sides
of the sand-hills would have to scramble to safety as their dwellings
rolled down the bank, undermined by some grading operation below. A
water system had been established, the nucleus of the present Spring
Valley Company. The streets had nearly all been planked, and private
enterprise had carried the plank toll-road even to the Mission district.
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