ale in the
town. The day after the cleaning-up ship had come in from the Islands, some small watery specimens of the root were exhibited in the market, and on the doorpost of one of the hotels was tacked a shingle on which was chalked "potatoes for dinner to-day." And early that morning the thrifty burghers of the place were out with their baskets, smilingly asking the market man "How do you sell potatoes?" "A dollar and a half," the reply would come. "Give me a bushel." "A bushel! They are a dollar and a half a pound." "Oh ! ah! I will take two pounds."
California gold largely increased the importation of silks, velvets, laces, jewelry, and other articles of luxury. It stimulated the building of houses, and carriages, the breeding of horses, but not the rearing of children ; it increased the number of theatres, balls, parties, and concerts four fold, and advanced real estate values, and the prices of all commodities.
One day a man having 1,500 dozen eggs for sale, brought in by a coasting schooner, hailed a street mer- chandise-broker, of whom there were hundreds in those days, and insisted on his buying them, which the broker finally did, at 37 J cents a dozen. Right away the buyer began to sell at $4 50 a dozen, when the first seller exclaimed " What a fool I have been ! " and securino; the remainder at the last mentioned price, took them to Sacramento and sold them at $6 a dozen.
When tobacco was down, a man desirous of build- ing a house on made ground tumbled in boxes of it, enough to form a foundation. Before the house was built tobacco was worth $1 a pound, more than a dozen such houses. Wanting a cross walk one threw in sacks of beans, which shortly after were worth thirty cents a pound.
At the restaurants of the period. Skinner's chop house on Second street, Sacramento, for example, were heard all the old cries of the cheap eating- houses of Fulton, Ann, and Nassau streets, New
