Page images
PDF
EPUB

On motion, the Treasurer received permission from the Society to apply to the City Council for liberty to stack the scrip forming the funds of the association upon the Plaza under cover of a Tarpaulin.

On motion, committees were appointed to report at the first meeting of the Society on the following subjects, namely: 1st, Antiquity; 2d, Geology; 3d, Toxicology; 4th, Ethnology; all as applicable to California.

On motion, the proceedings of this meeting and the future transactions of the Society shall be published in the San Francisco Daily Alta Californian, Silliman's Journal, the Boston Olive Branch, and the extra documents accompanying the President's annual message.

On motion, the Society adjourned, to hold its first regular meeting on Thursday evening, July 15th, in the remains of the old Adobe building anciently standing on the northwest corner of the Plaza.

Immediately on adjournment the several committees entered with zeal upon their various duties:

The Committee on Antiquities left at once, in the night boat, for Vallejo, the residence of their Chairman, who had informed them of the existence at that place of some specimens of a substance termed "Old Monongahela," lately discovered by a scientific gentleman residing at the Capitol;-the Committee on

Geology were seen eagerly inquiring for the omnibus for Yerba Buena Island; that on Ethnology appointed a sub-committee for the City of San Francisco, and made arrangements for the departure of its main body to the upper counties of the State, for the purpose of holding interviews with the primitive inhabitants, while the Castilian savant in the glazed hat, who had been appointed Chairman of the Committee on Toxicology, repaired incontinently to a drinking saloon, where he commenced a series of experiments in hydrostatics, with the endeavor to ascertain the quantity of fluid possible to be raised from a glass in a given time, by a straw applied to his mouth, which resulted so much to his satisfaction that he was seen to emerge therefrom at four o'clock on the following morning in a high state of pleasurable excitement, chanting huskily as he meandered down the street that highly refreshing Mexican anthem

"Castro viene-en poce tiempo
Cuidado los Americanos."

A. COVE,

Sec'y pro

tem.

G. SQUIBOB,

Cor. Sec. S. F. A. S. and C. A. A. S.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 10, 1351.

THE LADIES' RELIEF SOCIETY

[ocr errors]

EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS!! SCANDALOUS TREATMENT OF "OUR REPORTER!"

EDITOR OF THE

SAN FRANCISCo, July 12.

LEARNING that a meeting of the "Ladies' Relief Society" was to be held this morning at Pine Church, on Baptist Street, your Reporter, actuated by a desire to discharge his duty to the public by collecting valuable information, and incited by a laudable curiosity to ascertain what on earth the ladies desired to be relieved from (on which last point he obtained the most complete satisfaction, as will appear), repaired to that sacred edifice, and ensconcing himself in a pew conveniently situated, in case of a sudden retreat becoming expedient, near the door, patiently awaited the commencement of the proceedings.

At half-past nine A.M. precisely, as I ascertained by reference to the magnificent silver watch, valued at $18, which I did not draw in Tobin and Duncan's grand raffle, yesterday, but which, "on the contrary, quite the reverse," was bestowed on me by my deceased Grandmother (excuse the digression; I

I

am approaching a painful subject and like to do it gradually), the ladies began to assemble in their beauty, and, I regret to add, their strength. From the somewhat inconvenient position which, from motives of delicacy and a desire to avoid the appearance of intrusion, I had assumed on the floor of the pew, counted fifty-two of the "sweeteners of our cup of human happiness," of every age, figure, and appearance. There was the maid of blushing sixteen, and there was the widow of sixty, dressed in all imaginable styles of colors-white hats, red shawls, chip bonnets, green aprons, and pink-colored boots.

The Pine Church looked like a conservatory, and as I lay perdue, like an innocent (green) snake among the flowers, listening to the merry laugh and innocent playful gurglings of delight that fell from their hundred and four lips-" How'd do, dear?" "My! what a love of a bonnet!" "What did you draw, Fanny?" "Is Lizzie going to marry that fellow?" etc., I thought that "my lines were cast in very pleasant places, and that I had a goodly herit age." How painfully was I undeceived; how totally was I engulfed! (a preferable mode of expressionthat "engulfed "-to the common but indelicate one of "sucked in"). But I will not anticipate.

As the town clock struck ten the doors were closed, and a lady of mature age and benign though

[ocr errors]
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »