Three Men in a Boat a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880s craze for boating as a leisure activity. Following the overwhelming success of "Three Men in a Boat", Jerome later published a sequel, about a cycling tour in Germany, titled "Three Men on the Bummel" (also known as "Three Men on Wheels", 1900). The story begins by introducing George, Harris, Jerome (always referred to as "J."), and Jerome's dog, named Montmorency. The men are spending an evening in J.'s room, smoking
San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 Just outside, Jackson Street was the Chinese red-light district, where unmarried men could visit "hundred-men's-wives". On February 7, 1900, Wong Chut King, the owner of a lumber yard, fell sick with what the Chinese doctors thought was typhus or gonorrhea, the latter a sexually transmitted disease common to Chinatown's residents at that time. After failed medications and no relief for his illness, he passed away in his bed after suffering for four weeks. In the morning, the body was taken to a Chinese undertaker where it was examined by San Francisco police surgeon, Frank P. Wilson, on March 6, 1900.