ing to the sidewalk below. The crowd rushed to see the mangled corpse of the unfortunate man spread like a pancake over the sidewalk, but to their utter astonishment saw only a round hole in the planking about the size of an ordinary flour-barrel. Looking down through the opening into the cellar, which extended out under the sidewalk, they saw him pick himself up, walk to the stairs under the building, and in a moment more emerge as sound and well as ever, not a bone being broken, nor even a severe contusion received. The explanation of this remarkable occurrence was simple. A part of the sidewalk was of tough and hard Oregon pine plank, and a part of stone or brick covered with asphaltum. Between the two there were three redwood planks, and he had struck square on his feet on the centre one, going through it like a 480-pound shot through the roof of a house. Had he fallen a foot and a half on either side of the point where he struck, he would not have lived a second.
The fact and the party are both well known in San Francisco. The man was about his work next day as usual, and is so to the present time. When the bystanders who had witnessed the terrible fall discovered that nobody was hurt, they, Californian-like, began to make all sorts of jokes concerning the affair. Had the man been killed or maimed, a purse for the benefit of his family would almost certainly have been made up for him on the spot. As he was not, it was a fit subject for fun and exaggeration. One said he saw him straighten himself as he went down, and put his hands down on his thighs, like a
