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LETTER FROM THE BEAR WHO SWAM ACROSS THE GOLDEN GATE AND

LANDED AT THE PRESIDIO.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 1884.

MY DEAR COUSIN: Circumstances over which I had no control have prevented me from paying you that visit planned and premeditated such a considerable time. The real cause of the long dilation was an indecision on my part about the method of my travel. It would have been against my principle to travel by railroad, because under no condition would I encourage the heartless monopoly of the Central Pacific Railroad; besides, I have of late constantly been out of cash and had not the funds necessary to buy my ticket. So I decided to swim the Golden Gate, and found, when I landed

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near Fort Point, a military deputation ready for my reception. They had left their muskets home, which was very considerate of them. They knew that since my good grandmother was killed by an accident with firearms my nervous system has become very susceptible, and I do not like to hear shooting.

Unprepared as I was, I was nevertheless up to the occasion, and was just beginning a speech, when they retired rather hastily; probably because they saw that I was exhausted by the long swim and the exposure of my system to undiluted water, and that again was very considerate of them.

I found the country very much changed since my last visit. On my way to the city I met a police force that evidently was not so friendly disposed as the military deputation who received me when I came out of the water. They had firearms, and you know I hate the sight of firearms. Nevertheless I was ready to surrender, for I al

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ways have been a good citizen. Not for the world would I have resisted an arrest made by a superior, well-armed force, as long as I was sober. But I was spared the ignominy of a public arrest by the intervention of an Italian bootblack. Scarce had the men of the law seen the bootblack unpacking his box on the margin of a sand-lot, when they turned from me and arrested the Italian for blocking up the sidewalk. I was very much pleased with the promptness of this action, for I always liked to see authorities doing their duty, and that bootblack had no right to be a bootblack. Why was he not a dry-goods merchant, and he could have placed as many boxes on the sidewalk as he thought fit; or that auctioneer on California Street, about whose fragrant audience you complained in your last letter as blocking up the road to the Academy of Sciences?

You know that I always longed for a position in a zoological garden. In looking round for an institution of this kind to be

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