icants whose faces were less familiar.
One afternoon a most extraordinary Irishman, with a black eye, a bruised
hat, and other traces of past enjoyment, waited upon me with a pitiful
story of destitution and want, and concluded by requesting the usual
trifle. I replied, with some severity, that if I gave him a dime he
would probably spend it for drink. "Be Gorra! but you're roight--I
wad that!" he answered promptly. I was so much taken aback by this
unexpected exhibition of frankness that I instantly handed over the
dime. It seems that Truth had survived the wreck of his other virtues;
he did get drunk, and, impelled by a like conscientious sense of duty,
exhibited himself to me in that state a few hours after, to show that my
bounty had not been misapplied.

In spite of the peculiar characters of these reminiscences, I cannot
help feeling a certain regret at the decay of Professional Mendicancy.
Perhaps it may be owing to a lingering trace of that youthful
superstition which saw in all beggars a possible prince or fairy, and
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, whi