Theatres at San Francisco were once rude buildings of boards and canvas, and the stalls were benches. A story is told that at a performance at such a house quite a commotion was caused by the piercing squall of a healthy baby—brought in by a mother who, perhaps, had not had any amusement for a year or two, and most assuredly had no servant with whom to leave it at home—which was heard above the music. “Here, you fiddlers,” roared out a stalwart man in a red shirt and “gum” boots, just down from the mines, “stop that tune; I haven’t heard a baby cry for several years; it does me good to hear it.” The “one touch of nature” made that rough audience akin, and all rose to their feet, cheering the baby, and insisting that the orchestra must stop, and stop it did until the child was quieted. Then a collection was made—not of coppers and small silver, but of ounces and dollars—to present the child with something handsome as a souvenir of its success. [Illustration: THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO.] San Francisco, as the most important commercial emporium and port of the whole Pacific, has a particular interest to the “man of the sea.” It has societies, “homes,” and bethels for his benefit, and a fine marine hospital. At the Merchants’ Exchange he will find the latest shipping-news and quotations, while many public institutions are open to him, as to all others. Above all, he will find one of the most conscientious and kind, as well as influential, of British Consuls there—and how often the sailor abroad may need his interference, only the sailor and merchant knows—who is also one of the oldest in H.B.M. consular service. No matter his sect, it is represented; San Francisco is full of churches and chapels. If he needs instruction and literary entertainment, he will get it at the splendid Mercantile Library, or admirably-conducted Mechanics’ Institute. There is a capital “Art Association,” with hundreds of members. He will find journalism of a new type: “live,” vigorous, generous, and semi-occasionally vicious. The papers of San Francisco will, however, compare favourably with those of any other American city, short of New York and Boston. The sailor will find the city as advanced in all matters pertaining to modern civilisation, whether good or bad, as any he has ever visited. The naval officer will find admirable clubs, and if of the Royal Navy will most assuredly be put on the books of one or more of them for the period of his stay. He will find, too, that San Francisco hospitality is unbounded, that balls and parties are nowhere better carried out, and that the rising generation of California girls are extremely good-looking, and that the men are stalwart, fine-looking fellows, very unlike the typical bony Yankee, who, by-the-by, is getting very scarce even in his own part of the country, the New England States.