STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 177 



That qualification, however, is not unworthy the serious consideration 

 of the farmers and physicians of the present day. in this advertise- 

 ment of Mr. Bucl^elew there is a great deal of pride, poetry, and 

 rhetoric. But just see w^hat old habits and the laws of equivalents and 

 disorder give on an adjoining page : 



"Notice. — My wife, Hetty C. Brown, having left my bed and board, 

 the subscriber would inform the public that he will not be accountable 

 for any debts of her contracting from and after this date. 



"J. II. BROWN." 



The Sfar doesn't say what became of Hetty or Mr. Brown, but it's 

 fair to infer that bed and board which could be so easily sacrificed were 

 very common fare, and that Brown's credit would have proved a meagre 

 source of sustenance to the runaway. 



In this same issue of the Star, the editor, E. C. Kemble, perpetrates 

 an apostrophe to that meteorological certainty, the wind of San Fran- 

 cisco, which is so cleverly truthful that it will bear repeating : 



" Ever blowing, colder growing, sweeping madly through the town. 

 Never ceasing, ever teasing, never pleasing, never down, 

 Day and night, dark or light, 

 Signs a-flying, clapboards sighing — 

 Groaning, moaning, whistling shrill. 

 Shrieking wild, and never still. 



"In September, in November, or December, ever so ; 

 E'en in August will the raw gust, flying line dust, roughly blow. 

 Doors are slamming, gates are banging. 

 Shingles shivering, casements quivering — 

 Roaring, pouring, madly yelling, 

 Tales of storm or shipwreck telling. 



"In our bay, too, vessels lay to, finding no shelter from the blast; 

 Whitecaps clashing, bright spray splashing, light foam flashing — dashing past, 

 Yards are creaking, blocks a-squeaking. 

 Rudder rattling, ropes are clattering. 

 Lugging, tugging at the anchor, 

 Groaning spars and restless spanker. 



" Now the sun gleams, bright the day seems — hark ! he comes — is hoard the roar, 

 Haste to dwelling, dread impelling, heap the fire, close the door. 

 Onward coming, humming, drumming, 

 Groaning, moaning, sighing, crying. 

 Shrieking, squeaking — (reader, 't is so) 

 Thus bloweth the wind at — San Francisco." 



But this Callfornin Star contains much more inviting and profitable 

 food for reflection and contrast. On tlie twenty-eighth of April, eighteen 

 hundred and fortj^-seven, the Star publishes a statistical account of San 

 Francisco — a sort of city director}^, that forms an amazing contrast with 

 "Langley's Directory" of eighteen hundred and sixty-five. The autl)or 

 of this statement describes the boundaries of the city, and gives the 

 official surve}^ of Mr. Jasper O'Farrel, dividing and subdividing the city 

 into three classes of lots, to-wit: First — The beach and water lots. 

 Second — The fifty vara lots. Third — The one hundred vara lots. The 

 first class were located by and four fifths of them in the water at high 

 tide. The second are the next adjoining, and the third the outer range. 

 The first class were sixteen and a half varas front and fifty varas deep. 

 A vara is a Spanish yard, and is about thirtj'-three and a third inches 



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