A cook commanded three hundred dollars a month, a clerk two hundred dollars a month, and a carpenter received twelve dollars a day.

Lumber sold for four hundred dollars per thousand feet, and for a small dwelling house you had to pay a rental of five hundred dollars per month.

It must be remembered that people were pouring into San Francisco from all parts of the world in search of gold, that there were few if any persons to till the ground, and that many of the articles in demand for life's necessities were brought either across the Isthmus of Panama or around by Cape Horn.

In consequence the cost of living was necessarily high.
To-day you can live as cheaply in San Francisco or any other city of California, as Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or San Diego, as in any eastern city or town.

Rooms with board can be secured at the Palace Hotel, corner of Market street and New Montgomery, at the rate of three dollars and a half per day up to five dollars.