"The fact of the business season having now fairly commenced, and the necessity of being alive to take advantage of it, has materially accelerated operations. The present busy hum created by the industrious mechanic, will soon give way to the usual activity and bustle of mercantile trade, and ere the departure of the next steamer a casual observer would be scarcely able to realize the devastation of the 4th inst. Notwithstanding the immense amount of property destroyed, which was not at all over-estimated, business has not been so generally depressed, even momentarily, as it was feared and anticipated. Our community have risen again to the surface of the waters with cork-like buoyancy, and the sad and gloomy faces of the early part of last week have brightened by the prosperous hopes anticipated in the future. Never was calamity taken with more fortitude and philosophy than in this city. And if to win success is but to deserve, then those who have suffered will meet with their just reward. _Nil desperandum_ seems to be the popular motto, amalgamated with the David Crocket principle, enlarged and improved. We are satisfied that nothing can retard or check the prosperity, rapid growth, advancement and importance of this, the principal city and seaport of the Pacific coast. _Viva_ San Francisco!"
[Illustration: MODE OF WASHING CLOTHES IN CALIFORNIA.]
The annexed extract from the Message of the Mayor of San Francisco gives an idea of the quantity of disease and destitution in that city. No doubt San Francisco is the grand receptacle for all who become diseased in any way at the mines or other places in the interior; and this may serve to account for the extraordinary statements contained in the Message--
"During the last nine months, an expense of eighty thousand dollars has been incurred for the support of the sick and destitute, who have been thrown penniless upon our shores, and found friendless and homeless in our streets, and for the burial of those who have died without sufficient means to defray the expenses of interment. If these enormous expenditures are continued, (and it is evident from the rapid growth of the population, that they must seriously increase, unless some new system is adopted,) it will readily be perceived that a very large portion of the revenue of the city will be absorbed in defraying the expenses of the hospital department alone. Something therefore must speedily be done to remedy this great drain upon the public purse."
