Dr. Jonathan Letterman
Coroner, City and County of San Francisco.

Report 1868-1869

Death in San Francisco

   Estimating San Francisco to contain 150,000 inhabitants, you will find that one out of every 338 persons have ended their lives in such a manner as to require an investigation by the coroner.
   These cases are accidents, suicides, murders and those dying from natural causes where no physician has been in attendance. Among the latter, the friends of many have, in answer to my inquiries, informed me they were too poor to employ a physician.
   There is no city in the United States whose inhabitants are more willing to extend relief to the suffering poor as San Francisco, but it is not by giving money and other articles to those who ask for them that the most good can be done.
   There are many who are poor and suffer from poverty who are ashamed to beg; such should be sought for and their wants supplied. Much good can be done this way, and while many, both men and women, now do much by unostentatious charity to relieve the wants of the poor, a great deal is left undone.
   Cases have come before me where suicides have been committed (and by men of cultivated intellect), for want of means to procure something to eat. They have been unfortunate... too proud to beg, too honest to steal, and prefer to die than do either.
   These are the persons whose wants should be supplied, and in the vast majority of cases all they ask for is "work."

2. Chinatown