MELISSA’S ideas of refinement met with a great shock.  She concluded that the Indians’ acquaintance with soap and water must be extremely limited, and thought that the distribution amongst them of several boxes of COLGATE’S best would be a most delicate courtesy, and true missionary enterprise.  In looking at these noble representatives of savage life, she was greatly puzzled to discover where the dirt ended and the Indian began:  but philanthropy should overlook such trifles.  Philanthropy shouldn’t be squeamish.

MELISSA, ecstasized over Lake Tahoe, and Yo Semite, and the Big Trees, and was delighted, enchanted, and enraptured in the most thorough and conscientious manner.  She revelled amongst California grapes and pears, and quaffed the California wines with appropriate delight and hilarity.  She also studied JOHN CHINAMAN in all his phases, and came to the conclusion that he would do.  She thought it would be a seraphic experience to see the pride and importance of Misses BRIDGET and GRETCHEN taken down a little.  JOHN would certainly not possess the voluble eloquence—­of the first, nor the stolid impudence of the second, nor would he have, like the pretty Swede, a train of admirers a mile in length.  Of course he would not have these advantages to recommend him.  But then one can get along without florid oratory in the kitchen, and although a lady may feel highly pleased and flattered to see an unending procession of admirers file in and out of her drawing-rooms, still she has a most decided objection to seeing the same imposing spectacle in her kitchen.  Women, will be inconsistent.

MELISSA particularly admired JOHN’S manner of ironing.  She thought it peculiar but genteel, and gentility is always desirable.  There must be something about the climate of California that is especially inspiring to authors—­a kind of magnetism in the atmosphere that draws out all the literary talent which may be lying dormant in their souls—­so that any one desirous of becoming a writer, has only to take a trip to that fascinating region, and at some unexpected moment he will awake with rapture and delight to the blessed consciousness of having blossomed into a flower of genius, and, as such, will feel privileged at once to deluge his family, his friends, and the world in general, with the brilliant results of his most delightful discovery.

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THE PROFIT OF PURITAN PRISONS.

Spain has commissioned a Mr. AZCARATE, a Cuban, to visit and report upon our penal institutions, and the gentleman is now in the country.  We trust he will not fail to visit the Connecticut State Prison.  There he would unquestionably obtain numerous hints for improving the Spanish system of prison torture, or even that in vogue in his native land, for political prisoners.  There he might learn how Yankee thrift, applied in this direction, makes the starving of convicts even a more profitable business than manufacturing wooden nutmegs.  Perhaps not the least valuable information he would gain, would be the best method of goading obnoxious prisoners into revolt, and thus obtaining a chance for disposing of them, legally, by a capital conviction.