Even
the packers and traders were often hard pushed to make both ends meet, as when Simonton sold his mangy dog for $50, takmg in pay two worthless pups at $25 each.
In the summer of 1851, business was decidedly dull. Everybody complained. Many returned home. Miners had touched bottom ; for agricultural products there would be no demand, and the country was now a good one to leave. Auctioneers continued to ham- mer off goods at rates which, after paying freight, cartage, storage, and commissions, if the shipper was not brought in debt himself, he might deem himself fortunate. How like a golden dream the old time came over them — ^the brisk trade, and three and five hundred per cent profits of '49 and '50 I Alas, but for the fires they might now be at home enjoying the fruits of their enterprise, instead of being obliged, for the third or fourth time, to try it just once more.
None felt the dull times which seemed to settle on San Francisco in earnest first toward the spring of 1852 more than the sporting fraternity. Many gambling-houses did not make enough to pay the music, and gamblers did not refuse to play for as small a sum as a quarter of a dollar. Fifty-dollar sluu^s were as common on the dealer's table four months previous as silver dollars were now. The absence of rain about the 1st of March made business men and miners blue. People were just beginning to realize the full effect of the absence of rain upon the interests of the country, and no one had the heart even to gamble. Grand raffles were then started to stimulate the flagging spirits of gambling. Tobin and Duncan, auctioneers of China goods, finding them- selves with a large stock, and bidding being slow, en- gaged the Jenny Lind theatre, spread out a brilliant array of prizes, one thousand in number, consisting of diamonds, jewelry, paintings, and China fabrics, and on the 6th of March, 1852, distributed the whole by lot among the large audience in attendance. Five
