Year: 1859

Now we're going TO write you high old let
ter-you who are repinng, fretting, teasing and
imploring your husband to come home. Madam,
Your husband has told you the old story so Of
ten that you begin to think he is fooling you
that perhaps he has taken to drinking, gambling,
or has forgotten you and doesn't want to see you
any more. His letters are short and unfrequent,


=" surely" say you, "hc doesn't love me now
or he wouldn't stay away so long" And you
have been told that men in California are very
dissolute, and cut up many shines they wouldn't
like you to hear of. Well some of them do, but
not greater proportion than behave badly at
home. Now and then on Fourth of July, New
Year, and such times, your husband may have
been little bit eight" but next day he went
off to work for you! We are quite sure that we
saw him his shoulders were little more stoop-
ed than when you saw him there were occasion
al streaks of silver in bis bair-but we saw him
come down the hill TO the post office like boy
of seventeen. And we saw him in the exchange
house, shaking the last atom of gold from his
purse, with which he bought check for you
then he walked slowly off to his cabin, went to
bed and dreamed of you as you looked the morn
ing you were married. The blessed god Of sleep
was too kind to let him slight wrinkleor sill
very hair which may have stolen among the dark
tresscs which he told you were so beautiful. Al
terwards we saw him reading letter it said
I" Mr. Jericho, want some money; do come home,
rich or poor why do you stay so long," Poor
Mr.. Jericho he walked Off spasmodically he
hadn't any money just then, but bad good mind
to go and take a drink /; he was distressed and
nobody would buy the earth was parched or
frozen, and he couldn't dig he could not bor-
row, for nobody who knew him had money to
lend. So Mr. Jericho said "d-n the world"
and didn't answer your letter because be was
ashamed of having no money in a land OF gold.
But bis friend had letter too, which said" Oh
never mind, dear husband, know you can't al
ways have money I'll get along somehow, and


if you can't send any, write anyhow. Never des-
pair you'll outrun bad luck after n while, and
I'll wait so patiently. If you want me I'll come,
even in the steerage, and help you" Tier hus-
band went oil to his cabin with light pocket
and lighter heart, and he said " that old gal S
brick!' But Mr.. Jericho kept saying "d-n
the world"


Now, madam, permit the observation Donot
tease your husband to come home, money or
money :" it is hard to go poor from a country of
hope to whore he must work for dollar day
he could not be contented there: let him remain
till he has tired of trying, and do not think that
because he has often failed he has been idle, in
temperate or improvidcnt. Why, we know hus
bands who get mp Mt daylight and work till dark.
who never get drunk or forget their conjugal
faith, who have not dollar left at the end of the
year. We tell you that industrious men have
been preciptated TO vaGabondage and crime, by
the importantly Of friends who besought them to
come home, and reproached them for i'll success
and improvidcnce. Do not do that, as you dread
the curse Of a crushed and estranged heart, but
be patient and faithful as the eagle that sits un-
complaining in the nest when her companion
returns at nightfall with empty beak.


God knows the disappointed and Responding
gold hunter, living in " dens and caves Of the
earth, has enough to endure without the heart
breaking complaints of his absent wife, for whom
he patiently but unsucccssfully works in the
drcary damps of the mine till day abandons him
at his labors. Madam, no more at present, from
your friend.