all if Chapters in large centres would extend greeting to men and
women who are journeying hither and thither and who often stand in
need of just such services as the Brotherhood could give. In a few
hours after our arrival we were ready for the opening service of the
General Convention, in Trinity Church, on Gough street at the corner
of Bush street.

At intervals when duty would permit we made a study of San Francisco
and its life, rich in scene and incident, and most instructive as well
as attractive. Some of the noticeable features of the city are its
parks and squares. In the northern part or section, Washington and
Lobos Squares greet you, while Pioneer Park adorns Telegraph Hill,
and Portsmouth Square or the Plaza is just east of the famous Chinese
restaurant and close by police headquarters. This last was famous in
the early days as the centre of Yerba Buena, and here the American
flag was raised for the first time when our marines under Commodore
Montgomery took possession of the town. Indeed some of the most
exciting scenes in the early history of San Francisco were witnessed
in this locality. Volumes might be written about its Spanish and
Mexican families, its adobe buildings, its gambling places, its haunts
of vice, its public assemblies, its crowds of men from all lands, its
social and civic histories.

But all this is of the past, and it seems like a dream of by-gone
days. When I visited it on two occasions, in company with friends, it
was a quiet place enough; and the casual observer could never have
thought or realised that around this romantic spot fortunes made by
hard toil of weary months and years had been lost in a few short hours
in the saloon and gambling places for which the vicinity was noted,
that the worst passions of the human heart had been exhibited here,