There is an element in human society which acts as a corrective, and wrong is finally dethroned, and right displays her power with a divine force and a vivid sweep as a shaft of lightning from the sky.

We need never despair about the triumph of the good.

It is a noble sentiment which Bryant utters in "The Battle Field:" "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again: The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers." And never was there a community or a city where Truth asserted her sway more potently in the midst of evil than in San Francisco in the trying days of her youth.

With the rush from all lands to California for the coveted gold came the lawless and the blood-thirsty.

Men in the gambling houses would sometimes quarrel over the results of the game or over some "love affair." Fair Helen and unprincipled, gay, thoughtless Paris were here by the Golden Gate.