Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-12
THE DAILY REC0RD-UNI0N.
FROM THE BAY.
HOSPITALS AND AsYLUMs IN SAN
FRANCISCO.
Some Pleasant Thoughts About Some Sad
sights-san Francisco's Noble
Charity-Ete.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 9, 1850.


little San Francisco gardens became patches
of color and fragrance, while the great
ones, like Phelan's and Mrs. Green's and
the stretch Of Crocker's lawn, are very
fair to eyes best accustomed to cobble-
stones and asphaltum sidewalks. l had
wakeful hour the other hight, filed with
strange shudder and the honey of sweet
delight. 1t could not have been far from
midnight when / awoke so quietly tiat I
seemed to have fallen out of the arms of
silence into that hour OF content we are all
so patiently longing for. The perfume of
the handful of June roses | had gathered
came to my nostnl ike the dream of their
own perfume, and the shadows of my
thoughts were
SITTING AND SITTING
Through my brain like the shining sands
upon the shores of the Great River.
seemed to hear it's silent flow and to see the
silver Of its waters with the hosts who had
gone before into the vast Somewhere gath
ering among its shimmering mists. Such
an hour perhaps visits enc once in a score
of years, and 1T was almost q terror to
awake to the shudder of its last half
There was sound of running and scoffing
and derisive laughs on the street, then the
tread of feet swept past my window and |
heard a woman's voice, loud, strange, UNI
natural, now begging with sort of whine,
now coarse and vulgar in its speech and
then almost round the corner it burts forth
in stream of profanity. moment more
bor. lie, 6
the children following on in the dead Of
night behind their drunken mother. By
day they were probably pests of the street,
gamins of the corner, thieves of the curb,
but that night they were poor little chill |
dren clinging to the echo of their mothers |
dreadful voice. "Mamma mamma "
they called, 'oh, don't go away. Please, |
sir, don't take mamma away T" And then |
it all went by like by-play in the vast |
drama of city life and turned for sleep to |
the pillow ringing with those shuddering
cries. The next morning | saw by 1.-the
news that three women had been taken up
for drunkenness and disturbing the street.
but | couldn't tell which one of the three
was my woman. One comes upon
DREADFUL THINGS
Sometimes as they return from an after
moons visit or an evenings entertainment
nay you may but cross the street to be
witness to vice or disease or accident. a
few weeks ago, coming over from Oakland,
near me sat beautiful woman of perhaps
90, between two men. There seemed to
be something about the party to whisper
of what the woman was, and [ looked at
her plying the pretty face and the grace
that perhaps had tempted shame toward
her. Suddenly she arose, took off her
seal-skin sacque and hat, leaned over
toward one Of the men and kissed his
mouth, and in a moment more she had
leaped into the water. Then there was a
great commotion, but the man with the
seal-sllin and the hat sauntered uncon-
cernedly out of sight into the cabin, never
looking in any way to the womans rescue
They got the poor creature cut of the
water by and by and as she lay fainting in
the arms of those who had saved her, l /
thought her the most beautiful woman had
ever seen. She was very slender, and her
black silk dress chung to her form as if de-
lighting to show it in its loneliness while
her dark hair, loosened hung dripping
about the whitest face this side of death. |
People said she was "fast" woman,
shrugged their shoulders, and got out of
the way after a look or two; but no one
said e word of the two men who had been
her companions. Next morning the paper
said simply an unknown woman had at
tempted suicide the day before while cross
ing, from Oakland, and so it went by 80
just an episode of a day already in the
past Il seems as though there were so
many strays in the world, and yet you and
/ are as happy as though unconscious of
the shame and sin which fills each day,
Somehow it never comes home to us till the
,1uivering shaft of aisgrace strikes into
hes--t We trusted. / know OF no more pa.
thetic sight in Ill this great city than
TIE BABY CARRIAGE
Standing at the door of old DR.. Hardy's
Founding Asylum. A notice on the door
tells you to put the baby, well wrapped,
in the carriage, ring the door bell and re-
tire from sight to the sidewalk, where you
are to remain till you see that the child is
taken. | never see the little covered
w..~on that ] do not see also in t fn-cv
woman sobbing, having given up her own
baby forever, as she fees to the sidewalk.
/ think sometimes people who come here
from the country don't see the right things.
They visit the stock board and the park
and the Cliff House and the Palace Hotel
and the theaters, and that is all well
enough, too but they may see sight they
will never forget by going to Rev. I. X,
Mobiles church of Sunday morning when
the long line Of children from the Home
out on Geary street comes marching IN, or
to the Fiiteenth-street Congregational
Church to see the boys and the girls
from the Protestant Orphan Asylum conf
ing in to morning service, the boys
ali IN gray up one aisle. the girls in straw
hats trimmed with bands of ribbon up the
other. 1t used to be considered sort Of !
disgrace that child should be sent TO an
asylum, but it is not any longer so, When
a mans wife dies ana leaves behind her the
children, they never again in this world
can have the loving care and the sympathy !
of their mother, no matter how the father |
may place them but he can insure to
them kind treatment, strict attention, !
good training, religious instruction and the |
Incubation Of morality by putting them in
one os our several orphan asylums. He
need not feel that they are charity chill
dren, for of course he viii fully pay their
keeping in good hard coin taken frem his
own pocket, and yet it will not cost him
as much as TO hire them cared for at home
After long observation ! have come to the
conclusion that in few private homes would
you find happier children, better behaved
and more neatly clothed than you will
find IN
TIE AsYLUMs.
Again the word hospital for years had a
dreary, friendless, poverty-stricken sound
in my ears, but not SO now in this adj
vanced day. should like to take my
lady readers by the hand and lead them
out to the Mission, corner of Twenty
second street, to the old residence of Major
Hoyt. a garden surrounds the house,
green grass on every hand, tree rustling
above your head, lilac in full flower over