June 19, 1880, New York TImes San Francisco's Wealth @nytimes This is absolutely remarkable, and explains so much. "The People of San Francisco seem to have become educated to the idea that they must leap into fortune at once, and their big bonanza at Virginia City having failed, they do appear to be willing to exert themselves to hunt for wealth in other directions, such as the development of manufacturing, trade, and agricultural interests. Almost the entire population is imbued with the passion for speculation, and if a new bonanza as big as the one in Nevada were to be discovered either there or near here, stocks would mount again to absurd figures, and San Francisco would again pass through the period of flush times to again suffer as she has during the past two years." "Hard times" in San Francisco is a phrase that would mean almost "flush times" in an Eastern City, and means the absence of free-handed living and extravagant luxury rather than the presence of pinching poverty and cramped means."