AMERICAN ITEMS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 209, 12 October 1878, Page 5

AMERICAN ITEMS.

The Sin Fihnciaco correspondent of (he Auckland Herald writes . — SWIMMING BEAUTIES Let me conduct iho3i who like 'o go to tha sea buths in Alame'la County, same 20 miles from 'Frisco, which are reached by steamboat aud rail from the city. Whining through a lovely country, somewhat browu (wanting rain), which is relieved iv color by vast vegetable plantations, whose vivid green contrasts richly with the dried-up, thirsty bills, we atop before a large enclosure some hundreds of feet above the level of the sea. This is fille i with the carriages of the elite, the further hill being fringed with a splendid row of Australian blue gumF, beneath whosa turpentine-scented Bhade are placed benches for the audience. Steps lead down to the beach, where a vast area of water is reclaimed from Neptune's domain by a high square fence of piles. Down two sides are rarged on platforms rows of coay bathing-rooms, whera men, women, aud children, in the most refreshingly indiscriminating manuer, mingla to^athsr without much regird to moiesty or even decency. In tlie midst of the ladies are « group of men, wbo have habited themselves in the tightest grey suits they can procute, bound with ecarlet. They are posing op the rails, with a cigarette a-piece stuck iv their mouths, and a braudy flisk in their hands, passing it round, while a bruoette, with a fiiry form, chats with them, and splashes the brioy wavelet with her pratty fat foot. Further on are a group of very ugly women, whose bare feet, are all covered with corns, bunions, and ingrowing nai'e, seem to plead with their owners for slippers. " May I teach you to * swim, mam ?" says a young dandy to a petite blonde, "Ob, p'eise,'* slie simpers, mid forthwith —ha never liayiug lnid eyes on \\qv before — places his arras round her, and off they go. The boys are not backward ; they, too, affect cigarettes, und now their -'girls"; they are in the water for houre, then bick every little while to the sand, in which they roll themselves, and lie panting qq the biach in acores, like

brown seals ; in fact, they strike the beholders on first sight as being either seals or exaggerated lobsters. Four thousand people congregate at these batba every Saturday and Sunday, — the fast and the slow, the good and the bad, the worst characters in the city having free toll on those days. Every kind of dress is donned in the water ; red, white, blue, grey, brown, gipsy hits, facinatbra of colored : wool, and silk oaps being the head-^ear of the swimmming beauties. It is b wonderful scene under the sumtnar sun, and the roads for miles are lined with hurrying multitudes of humanity, going at a pace that would seem to iadica'.e a fear lest all planes should ba taken, or ihe tide might suddenly ran away.