Although a Jewish organization, and none but Jews could become members of it or receive burial in the Jewish Cemetery, its aim was to give relief, as long as its financial condition would permit, to every worthy person that appeared, whoever he was or whatever his creed. Recalling this efficient organization, I may say that I believe myself to be one of but two survivors among the charter members--S. Lazard being the other. Kiln Messer was another pioneer who came around the Horn about that time, although he arrived here from Germany a year later than I did; and during his voyage, he had a trying experience in a shipwreck off Cape Verde where, with his comrades, he had to wait a couple of months before another vessel could be signaled. Even then he could get no farther toward his destination--the Golden Gate--than Rio de Janeiro, where he was delayed five or six months more. Finally reaching San Francisco, he took to mining; but, weakened by fever (an experience common among the gold-seekers), he made his way to Los Angeles. After brewing beer for a while at the corner of Third and Main streets, Messer bought a twenty-acre vineyard which, in 1857, he increased by another purchase to forty-five or fifty acres; and it was his good fortune that this property was so located as to be needed by the Santa Fé Railroad, in 1888, as a terminal. Toward the end of the seventies, Messer, moderately well-to-do, was a grocer at the corner of Rose and First streets; and about 1885, he retired. Joseph Newmark brought with him to Los Angeles a Chinese servant, to whom he paid one hundred dollars a month; and, as far as I know, this Mongolian was the first to come to our city. This domestic item has additional interest, perhaps, because it was but five or six years before that the first Chinese to emigrate from the Celestial Kingdom to California--two men and a lone woman--had come to San Francisco in the ship _Eagle_ from Hong Kong. A year later, there were half a hundred Chinamen in the territory, while at the end of still another year, during the gold excitement, nearly a thousand Chinese entered the Golden Gate. The housekeeping experiences of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Newmark remind me that it was not easy in the early days to get satisfactory domestic service. Indians, negroes and sometimes Mexicans were employed, until the arrival of more Chinese and the coming of white girls. Joseph Newmark, when I lived with his family, employed, in addition to the Chinaman, an Indian named Pedro who had come with his wife from Temécula and whose remuneration was fifty cents a day; and these servants attended to most of the household duties. The annual _fiesta_ at Temécula used to attract Pedro and his better-half; and while they were absent, the Newmark girls did the work.