San Francisco, Oct. 19th. Have spent nearly three weeks in this city, waiting for letters. Col. Moore, post-master, kindly interested himself in the recall of those sent to the mountains, but they have not been received. Two mail steamers have arrived since I have been here, and, though three mails were due, have brought none. Not only one gulf, but parts of two oceans and one continent, are between me and my family, while the only comfort which reaches me is the thought that those I love are under the protecting care of an Almighty Friend. There is much sickness now in this city. Many come down sick from the mines. The situation of such is desperate indeed. There is a heartless unconcern in the community generally to the sufferings and wants of the many who are dying wretched deaths in the midst of them. It may not, perhaps, be possible that it should be otherwise. Every man is too much occupied with his own concerns to be able to search out objects of charity; and there are so many such cases constantly recurring, as to induce a feeling of indifference, the result of familiarity with the sufferings of others. I was present at a religious meeting when this subject was mentioned, and means were suggested for some systematic and efficient relief. Some cases were related which called for immediate aid. The case of one young man, in particular, awakened my sympathy, and I devoted the next forenoon to an effort to find him. I was at length directed to a large open lot bordering upon the shore, and covered with bales, boxes, and barrels of goods of all descriptions. After walking up and down over this lot, I could discover no object of distress, or no place where he could have found a resting-place, and gave up the pursuit. Three days afterward, as I was standing at the door of a store opposite this lot, a small crowd gathered there, and were looking at some object with intense interest. I crossed over, and there, beneath a hide stretched over two boxes, and crouched down between these boxes, was the corpse of the poor man I had sought, who had died there unfriended and alone. His head was leaning upon his hand, placed upon an edge of the box. No one could have supposed that a human body was concealed there. I had twice passed by that very spot in my search for him. The least groan could have been heard from the street. At the religious meeting I have mentioned, held beneath the tent chapel of the Presbyterian church, it was stated that there had been lately twelve cases of suicide in San Francisco. Yesterday a young man from New England left his tent in “Happy Valley,” and went to a retired place, untied his cravat and hung it upon the bushes, took a razor from its case, and put the case upon his cravat, and then deliberately cut his own throat. Pecuniary losses, it is supposed, was the cause.