Carson Daily Appeal

"A QUESTION FOR CHICAGO TO ANSWER."

We are tempted to make an imperfect quotation, a quotation from the New Testament from memory, after reading the following copy of a communication which we find in the San Francisco Chronicle of December 6. The passage we would quote is that which addresses a certain man as "thou hypocrite" and admonishes him to take a beam out of his own eye in order that he may see more clearly the mote in his brother's eye--or words to that effect. Somebody, probably the author of the subjoined letter to the Chronicle, sends us a copy of that paper with a blue line round his communication, which is herewith reproduced, as follows:

To the Editor of the Chronicle--SIR: The many misfortunes of the Virginia City people which have resulted from the recent great fire, the present want and destitution prevailing there, the number of the sufferers and the large amount of money necessary to any considerable relief of their wants, all urge us to the consideration of how much can possibly be done for them. In this connection we naturally remember the extravagant generosity displayed by these people on the occasion of the memorable Chicago fire; and I would ask what has Chicago done in gratitude or in charity for the suffering thousands of Virginia City, who, all things considered, suffered proportionately more than those of Chicago did? Please inform the public through your valuable columns whether they are really more "on the receive" than "on the give," as such seems to be the case.

Yours truly,
A REGULAR SUBSCRIBER.
San Francisco, December 4, 1875.

This is very well indeed, no doubt; but it would come with better grace from someone else than a resident of San Francisco, a city which has suffered no very serious conflagrations for more than twenty years, whose present prosperity is almost wholly due to the developments of the Comstock Lode and whose entire contributions to the sufferers of Virginia City have amounted to somewhere within the stingy neighborhood of twenty-five thousand dollars. San Francisco, as we have once before ventured to say, should have given not less than a quarter of a million. She could better afford to give a whole million than Carson could to give the eight or nine thousand dollars which she has contributed. Chicago ought to have given, and given liberally; but that city is far remote from Virginia and has no such intimate relations with the Comstock mines as San Francisco has, while at the same time, her recovery from the effects of the terrible fire of 1871 is not yet complete. The fact is, San Francisco's comparative parsimony toward Virginia is as surprising as it is difficult of explanation.