Adolph Sutro was one of the few educated men of the time. He was a black-bearded, serious, learned Jew, and more of an artist in his line than the others. He carried out many plans for beautifying San Francisco, built the Sutro Gardens and the large baths out by the ocean, and tried to encourage an interest in the fine arts by sending students abroad to study. I have sat many a time in his downtown office and heard him talk about his plans for the Sutro Tunnel. He had seen the suffering of the men in the mines on account of heat and bad air, and the troubles that occurred from the water that had to be constantly pumped out. So he worked out a theory for the construction of a tunnel into the Comstock and other mines, which would begin at a low level and run deep into the mountain, meeting the mines, draining them, and forming a passage through which the ore could be brought out. After encountering many difficulties in financing his project, he obtained his capital from the East and even from Europe, but the hardships had just begun. The first attempts were failures from an engineering point of view, but the final result was of inestimable benefit to the country. Mr. Sutro helped personally with the work, and could be seen with coat off at the head of a gang of laborers, helping with his bare hands to make his dream come true. Hospitality stretched to its utmost limits in California during the ’seventies. Anything the state produced belonged to the meanest of God’s creatures. I remember being invited to visit at a country place and, walking over the estate, hesitated to pick any of the fruit. I was laughed at. “The fruit grows on the trees for any man to pick,” said my host. It was literally true: but the memory of being whipped, in Concord days, for climbing a wall and picking a pear, was too recent for me to understand this point of view. One of the most lavish entertainers, and a man to whom the city of San Francisco owes a great debt, was William Ralston. He started numberless civic enterprises, one of which was a hotel which was to make her famous the world over; and he imbued that hotel with a spirit, a hospitality, and an atmosphere which have endured to the present time. Into every detail of this hostelry he put the most loving care. After the fire of 1906, which completely demolished the inside, the walls remained as stanch and firm as they ever were and completely earthquake proof—due to their enormous thickness.