It may appear like exaggeration to say that San Francisco contains the largest and most complete general Book and Stationery, mercantile and manufacturing business in the world. Yet, such is the fact. Not that the business, by any means, equals that of Harpers' and Appletons', of New York, Hachette of Paris, or the stationers of London. But, between these houses and Bancroft's, there is no comparison. The character of their trade is totally different. One publishes books, another manufactures paper, and so each is large in one thing, whereas the Bancrofts, collecting from the manufacturers of all the world, and manufacturing according to the requirements of their trade, cover under one management the ground occupied by all others combined. In older and larger cities, one house deals in law books alone; another, school books, etc., while this San Francisco house—besides a full stock of books in every department of literature, and stationery from the manufacturers of Europe and America, paper from the mills of New England, pencils from Germany, pen-holders from Paris—unite Printing, Book-binding, Lithography, Blank-Book Making, Engraving, &c., every thing, in short, comprised in all the business of all the others.
The detail is necessarily very great. They buy from a thousand sellers, and sell to many thousand buyers. Over one hundred employés, divided into nine departments, each under an experienced manager, ply their vocation like bees in a hive of six rooms, each 37 by 170 feet. To the latest improvements of the finest machinery, driven by steam, apply the highest order of skilled labor, and San Francisco can do anything as well and as cheaply as New York, London or Paris.
The retail department, occupying the first floor, has the most magnificent salesroom on the Pacific coast. Visitors are warmly welcomed, and strangers politely shown through the premises.
Private Residences.
For the convenience of the tourist, who may want to see the homes of our city as well as her public buildings and business blocks, we mention the locality of the following, which are among the finest of our private dwellings: Erwin Davis, southwest corner of California and Powell streets; Milton S. Latham, Folsom street, opposite Hawthorne, on Rincon Hill; D. J. Tallant, corner of Bush and Jones street; Richard Tobin, corner of California and Taylor streets; John Parrott, 620 Folsom street. By making two trips—first, over California street, and returning by Sutter or Bush street; second, over Rincon Hill on Folsom street, and returning by Harrison, the visitor may see the finest of our private residences.
Points of Observation.
Telegraph Hill.—This notable natural landmark stands at the head, that is, at the north end of Montgomery street. The early settlement, the pioneer hamlet from which the present city has grown, was made in the hollow near the southwest foot. Civilization has encircled it on the land side, and crept two thirds the way up, while commerce has claimed the water front along its opposite base—but the summit still stands as free as when the priestly fathers first looked thence upon the glorious inland sea, which flashes between it and the sunrise. Let us climb it—this way, straight up the Montgomery street sidewalk, Slowly, please; we have the day before us; exhausted lungs impair one's sight. Stop at the corner of each intersecting street, and glance either way, but especially eastward—that is, downward toward the Bay. Now, "Excelsior," again; up these stairs; now along this natural surface—no asphaltum walks or Stow foundation pavements up here yet, you see—on, by these houses; turn to the left here; now to the right, follow this winding way; patiently please—that's it; only two or three minutes more—ah! here it is—this is the highest point, where the old observatory stood. Sit and breathe a moment; slip on your overcoat, or put that extra shawl about you; it's easy to take cold here, far easier than to rid yourself of it in the city below.
For the sake of method in our survey, we may as well begin at the northwest; thence "swing round the circle," through north, east, south and west, and return to the point of starting. Looking northwesterly, then, we have first the elevated, undulating plateau, which stretches along the flattened summits of the northernmost spur of the broad peninsular hills, and terminates in the precipitous bluff known as Fort Point—the southern gate-post of the far-famed Golden Gate. Through this we gaze seaward along the further margin of the strait, where it sends in a surging cove upon the rocky beach, between Point Diablo and Point Bonita. The projection of the latter point shuts off the vision, which else might range up the northwesterly trend of the coast, along the ocean-shore of Marin county to Punta de los Reyes, (King's Point) which projects southward between Bolinas bay and the ocean. Between Point Diablo and Lime Point, a slight northerly curve, in the shore line makes a shallow cove, from whose edge the vision climbs the successive hills or ridges which fill the ascending space as it roughly rises toward the crowning point of Marin county, Mount Tamalpais, two thousand six hundred and four feet nearer heaven than the beach line whence we set forth. Still following round, we look up into Richardson's Bay; next the southwestern end of Raccoon Strait, and then Angel Island. We are now looking north. Alcatraz, the rocky island which nature set just there to support a commanding fortress; then, an eye-sweep up over the northern part of San Francisco Bay to that narrow strait which joins it with San Pablo Bay; northeast the San Pablo shore of Contra Costa county, and the hills which terminate the Mount Diablo peninsular range. Nearer east, the strangely monotonous hills, whose ridges and gullies look as if plowed out by heavy rains, and rounded by sweeping winds. Grassy or earthy, they look, according to the time of year and kind of season. Now, almost east, the vision falls. This large island, off in the midst of the bay, is Yerba Buena, or Goat Island. It rises three hundred and forty feet above low water mark. Nearly in a line over the island appears Berkeley, the site of the University of California, of which one large building, already two thirds raised, you may possibly discern. A little further south—that is, to the right, you can plainly see the State Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind. This noble building crowns a gently-sloping eminence just at the margin between the broad and nearly level plain which stretches between it and the bay, and the foothills back of which the Contra Costa mountains bring up the rear.
Almost due east lies Oakland, the tree-city of the beautiful grove-dotted plain. Then Clinton, San Antonio, Brooklyn and Alameda, snuggled in together so closely that one can't tell "which is which;" and, as far as the beauty of the view is concerned, it doesn't matter either, for they are all fair to look upon and lovely to behold. The clustering trees shut out by far the larger portion of the houses, so that we might hardly suspect the size and population of the towns, whose scattered roofs show here and there among the trees.
We are looking southeasterly now. That creek, whose mouth you see just beyond Alameda, leads into San Leandro bay; and right over it, nearly hidden by intervening trees, lies the town of the same name. A little further south, and too distant to be plainly seen, is Hayward's. That depression in the mountain summits beyond, marks the opening of Livermore pass, through which the Western Pacific Railroad finds its way.