THE CALIFORNIAN LOS ANGELES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9120, 4 June 1890, Page 6

THE CALIFORNIAN LOS ANGELES.

(Longman’s Magazine.) How different was the Californian Log Angeles of fifteen years ago, with its adobe! houses, its little gardens, and its pepper-! trees in the main streets, from the busy', city of stiff houses of to-day. When I first visited it in those early days, I went into! the Belle Union, the principal hotel, in the! bar whereof I found a party of loaferal engaged in what they would themselves I have termed, with felicitous if unusual! accuracy, “swapping lies." For the most! pact they spoke of the good times of ohl—| of the men they had seen shot down in the; open street—of the coaches they had known; attacked—of the editors whose offices had been stormed at the revolver’s mouth. And 4 while they congratulated civilisation in general, and Los Angeles in particular, that; citizens had now settled down into a lawabiding people, that there was now no insecurity of property or person, there was yet plainly noticeable throughout their, mutual congratulations an under-vein of pathos, a tenderness in their retrospect of the good old days of yore when men “ shot on sight.” But now, happy people though ! they were, their annals were dull. Nothing now ever occurred to wake the Belle Union bar into even the most transient excitement.

Such was the note of their lamentation, 1 when on a sudden the door of the saloon' was thrown violently open. In rushed a : man of gigantic stature. His shirt was! red. His beard was long and, flowing* His eyes were bloodshot. In each hand he, held a large Colt’s revolver. He wasman* ifestly furious with drink. “ It’s Jake," said one and all in unison. ; He waved his arms, with the loaded pistols, wildly. “I’ll shoot every man of yon that’s not; out of this bar-room by the time I’vej counted ten," and with this he began to 1 count slowly—" One, two, three—” • Before he had counted five every soul; but myself and ho had cleaved from ,the; room. In mortal terror I sat there—tooj scared, too paralysed, ta move. Mercifully, I was concealed from him, for he had] reached his limit oE ten long-before I had sufficiently collected my wits to think of j moving. Between him-and myself was the; table, and on the table, as often in these; saloons, stood a raised .frame in which! merchants post the advertisements of theiri wares. Through a chink between two ofi these advertisement placards I could seoj friend Jake, and I could also be pretty sure that he could not see me. I could also see the bar, which ran In the form ofi a counter along the entire length of one side of the room. As Jake come .to the word “ ten,” I saw the head of the bar-i keeper slowly raiseitself above"thiß oottiite&. 1 Then he slowly and cmfiaously produced! from below the counter a double-barrelled! gun. He pointed its barrels fair upon) Jake, and when ho had got it to ■ bear full! upon him, he suddenly screamed, “Throw) up your hands, Jake." Jake looked quickly] round. Then, realisipg thesitoation, and reflecting, probably, that the top of thej bar-keeper’s head .presented but a v«J{ small mark above the counter, while thqj gun-barrels looked very big and fonuidh ; able, he threw bis arms into tho/iilr ; aod . began emptying the contents of both hig revolvers into the ceiling. i When he had acqompilshed this what waste!ul expenee of ammunition, tw«j policemen, who had been on the watch! outside, came into thesaloon and marched off poor Jake mtoducqnco vile. i The party of bar-loafers then! came dropping in one by one, secszniugl« very little affected by this incident. fbeffi sympathy was evidently rathet on lafee’iv side. “ Poor Jake!” they sfitidi *.h&ll get shot one of these days when he's out oisj the tare, if he don’t mind.” i But me they looked upon as a prodigy] of valour and. indifference to loaded: re-j volvers and so.forth; atjd on the strength] of this reputation forrodoor, which imuM my abject and. paralytic nervelesanese has won for mo, I made many more than ever my letters of introduction would! have brought. *