Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-20
PARK AND SAND LOT.
TRIP TO GOLDEN GATE PARK. SAN
FRANCISCO.
kate Heath's" Visit to the Sand Lot and
what she Saw There-The Gray
Rational Charity.
SAN FRANc1sco, March II, 1880.

These are usually days for triskiness,
noon maps and trees in bloom, but since
last took up my pen to think of you we
have had just two glorions days. They
stood so apart that they seemed to be set
up in frame by themselves. On the first
of them we had home made picnic to the
park. No pound cake, no claret, no boned
turkey, but biscuit, boiled eggs, jam and
and cookies, or the lunch of digestion and
happiness. The new cable cars on Geary
street took US. Everything about
A CABLE CAR
Is different from horse car. In the first
place there is something indescribably jolly
in riding outside on the dummy then
everything is new. clean and spick and
span, and the motion of the car is so
smooth and gliding, it is like getting to
sleep and sitting on the edge of dream.
The conductors all seem to have sprung
out of gentlemanlike newness, and their
uniforms are 30 refreshingly bright and
clean that one almost feels like apologizing
for the smallness of the five cent fare.
Geary street has suddenly grown in impor-
tance, and property has advanced since
the establishment of this new line. Hand
some residences stand on either hand al
most its full length, and TO ride along In
front of the dummy the houses look as
though they had parted and fallen back to
left and to right, just to allow of
our passage. Nearly every house,
where it is possible, blossoms into
bay windows and front porticos, and
puts on collar made of Eating just before
it finishes off at the top. The bay window
looking toward the south becomes almost
a conservatory within in smilax and coleus,
geranium and swinging baskets, while
without it is twined and intertwlned with
vines. Reaching the park the first thing
which greets the eye is tin cup chained
to faucet for the accommodation of all
such foot passengers as ourselves, and other
convenient faucets are placed throughout
the grounds. The
GOLDEN GATE PARK
Is looked upon this year as a place for a
days pleasuring on foot as well as an
hours drive There are footpaths and
rustic seats and arbors everywhere, show
ing that it is the city's, and not for the
few alone Through the miles of drives
on Saturdays there are superb teams and
fast trotters, and the show and shine
of the public promenade. but | never
realized till now what different
place it was on weekday. Sober old
family horses jog comfortably over the
macadam, carriages full of children and
sociable phaetons came into view every mo-
ment, and even the light spring wagon
comes by with a rattle. The morning |
went hundreds of well-dressed, contented-
looking people were out for day with
babies and young ones just able to toddle
about. and larger children, and not a child
but seemed to lift up its face and take in
the free sunlight and lovely air, as geese
and ducks open their bills and poke them
about when the rain comes. | should have
liked to sweep all the San Francisco alley
ways and cellars and attics free of children
and filed the park that day. Wonders of
work has been done and is still to be done.
Winding about on the drives, here is
a brilliant corner of lawn, there
garden-spot, just beyond an edge
of box or broom, over yonder
clump of laurestinas or grove of euca-
growth and the scrubby trees that have
sprung up without cultivation and are
twisted and turned about by the winds,
and by make forest of fir, or the ever
present and accommodating eucalyptus
grows or the acacia reaches down its grace
ful fingers Then a bald sand hill rises,
YELLOW AS GOLD
In the sunlight, and covered all over with
little drifts and ripples of sand, and it
shines and shines as though hundreds of
twinkling stars were hidden just under its
surface. The visitor comes constantly
upon companies of men at work digging,
planting, widening, opening roads and
grading-the dollar-a-day men given en-
ployment by the Bush fund.- If ever
there was one blessed gift to the poor
beyond bread and clothing it is
the park conservatory so filled
with tropical color and odor and bloom
so rare with dripping waters and song
birds and strange growths-itis the gilt
of the beautiful. Yesterday, drawn partly
by curiosity and partly by interest. went
to queer spot
THE SAND LOT.
1t is spot which should be sacred, too,
for it is the site of old Yerba Buena ceme-
terry, where San Francisco buried her first
dead, as it has since proved, in her very
heart. 1t is also in the shadow of the new
City Hall, that vast pile of brick and ex-
penditure which lies under the heavens
still unfinished, with the clink around it
of hammer upon stone, and the suggestion
of grand colonnade with pillar and pave
ment and mighty beam. A platform is in
the middle of the lot and round it small
crowd had gathered, toward which waded
through the sand. l went among the
women and not one looked clean and
sweet, their finger nails were black
and their skirts bedragged, their hair
dry and struggling and their teeth
dirty. They looked down at my gloves,
my decent dress; they eyed my cleanly
shawl and my yelled face, and said one at
my side, whose face was covered with freck-
les, to another, whose brown dress was
ornamented with grease spots down the
front, "There are strangers here to-day"
% Yes, and they don't believe in it, was
the reply. "Ah, well /" said the first,
good humoredly, in my ear, "we'n con-
vert them" Then L went where the
men were. They were smoking clay
pipes and splitting tobacco, and profanity
was free as the grains of sand,
but as l stepped about one man and an
other made way for me. Whatever else
an Irishman may do, he is polite to the
petticoat. A big man, not over clean, be-
gan to speak with strong German accent.
He insisted upon it that he had right to
live. l suppose he meant at some other
mans expense, for that seemed to be the
prevailing idea about me. He told of
woman who keeps restaurant, but re.
fused to donate provisions to the Free Hotel