uth. One served as an election officer at the
risk of sanity if not of life. In the "fighting Seventh" ward I once
counted ballots for thirty-six consecutive hours, and as I remember
conditions I was the only officer who finished sober.

During my first year in government employ the depreciation in
legal-tender notes in which we were paid was very embarrassing. One
hundred dollars in notes would bring but thirty-five or forty dollars in
gold, and we could get nothing we wanted except with gold.

My second year in San Francisco I lived in Howard Street near First and
was bookkeeper for a stock-broker. I became familiar with the
fascinating financial game that followed the development of the Comstock
lode, discovered in 1859. It was 1861 before production was large. Then
began the silver age, a new era that completely transformed California
and made San Francisco a great center of financial power. Within twenty
years $340,000,000 poured into her banks. The world's silver output
increased from forty millions a year to sixty millions. In September of
1862 the stock board was organized. At first a share in a company
represented a running foot on the lode's length. In 1871, Mr. Cornelius
O'Connor bought ten shares of Consolidated Virginia at eight dollars a
share. When it had been divided into one thousand shares and he was
offered $680 a share, he had the sagacity to sell, realizing a profit
of $679,920 on his investment of $80. At the time he sold, a share
represented one-fourteenth of an inch. In six years the bonanza yielded
$104,000,000, of which $73,000,000 was paid in dividends.

The effect of such unparalleled riches was wide-spread. It made Nevada a
state and gave great impetus to the growth of San Francisco. It had a
marked influence on society and modified the character of the city
itself. Fifteen years of abnormal excitement, with gains and losses
incredible in amount, unsettled the stability of trade and orderly
business and proved a demoralizing influence. Speculation became a
habit. It was gambling adjusted to all conditions, with equal
opportunity for millionaire or chambermaid, and few resisted altogether.
Few felt shame, but some were secretive.

A few words are due Adolph Sutro, who dealt in cigars in his early
manhood, but went to Nevada in 1859 and by 1861 owned a quartz-mill. In
1866 he became impressed with the idea that the volume of water
continually flowing into the deeper mines of the Comstock lo