invested their calling with a mysterious awe. Perhaps it may be from
a belief that there is something in the old-fashioned alms-givings
and actual contact with misery that is wholesome for both donor and
recipient, and that any system which interposes a third party between
them is only putting on a thick glove, which, while it preserves us from
contagion, absorbs and deadens the kindly pressure of our hand. It is a
very pleasant thing to purchase relief from the annoyance and trouble
of having to weigh the claims of an afflicted neighbor. As I turn
over these printed tickets, which the courtesy of the San Francisco
Benevolent Association has--by a slight stretch of the imagination in
supposing that any sane unfortunate might rashly seek relief from a
newspaper office--conveyed to these editorial hands, I cannot help
wondering whether, when in our last extremity we come to draw upon the
Immeasurable Bounty, it will be necessary to present a ticket.




"SEEING THE STEAMER OFF"


I have sometimes thought, while watching the departure of an Eastern
steamer, that the act of parting from friends--so generally one of
bitterness and despondency--is made by an ingenious Californian custom
to yield a pleasurable excitement. This luxury of leave-taking, in which
most Californians indulge, is often protracted to the hauling in of the
gang-plank. Those last words, injunctions, promises, and embraces, which
are mournful and depressing perhaps in that privacy demanded on other
occasions, are here, by reason of their very publicity, of an edifying
and exhilarating character. A parting kiss, blown from the deck of a