| Transcript |
- 196 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
mer. Pistols seemed to have been carried by all as a necessity. Cora and Casey were taken out of the jail by the vigilance committee and hanged May 18th, 1856. There were also pieces of the rope used in hanging Hetherington and Brace for the murder of Baldwin, Randall, West and Marion, July 29th, 1856. There were pictures also of Judge Terry, A. B. Paul, Wm. T. Coleman, Charles Doane, James King of William, and a picture of the scene of his assassination. I recognized this locality immediately I saw it. It was the offices of the Pacific Express Co., on the corner of Washington and Montgomery. There were also pictures of Fort Gunnybags, the headquarters of the vigilance committee, showing the alarm bell and the sentries on the roof; also Lola Montez, Countess of Bavaria, a most notable woman of those exciting times, and of William C. Ralston. There was a picture of the pavilion of the first Mechanics' Exhibition, held in San Francisco in 1857. I remember this exhibition well, as on a certain day all the school children were given free admission, and it was as a school boy I went.
There was an extensive collection of relics of the past in the Egyptian rooms, many being facsimiles of the originals in the British Museum. Where this was the case it was so stated, but there were many genuine things, amongst which I noted a wooden statue dating back about 1,000 years before Christ, being the wife, and also sister of Osiris, and mother of Horus, chief deity of Egypt. Strictly on the stroke of four o'clock a policeman went through the building and called out that the buildings must be closed. I made a request to one of these policemen to see the curator, and he took me to his office; he was, unfortunately, not in, but I saw his assistant and offered her some relics of early
A VISIT TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 197
San Francisco, which were accepted. I was watching the people filing out, prior to closing, when out came three bluejackets, whose caps showed they belonged to H. M. S. Shearwater. I introduced myself, and re-marked, " What are you boys doing here? I should hardly have expected to have seen sailors so far from their ship." " Oh, sir, we are at anchor in the harbor yonder, and will be leaving Monday for Esquimalt." I saw her that evening at anchor, with the Union Jack flapping in the breeze, and suppose the Jacks were aboard all right.
We were advised that the mint was open to visitors between the hours of 9.30 and 11.30, and as I had not been there for about twenty years we joined a party one morning. On presenting ourselves we were ushered into a waiting-room with others. Later on a man in uniform came for us. We were counted and told to follow. We were first taken down to a room in the cellar where we were instructed as to what we should see, and given a lot of information about the mint. This was done where it was quiet, as where the work was done it is very noisy. The first process was melting the silver in crucibles, which were emptied of their contents when in a liquid state into molds, which were in turn emptied out, were grasped by a man who passed them on with thick leather-gloved hands to powerful rollers which rolled the ingots out to long strips like hoop-iron, after being passed through many times. These strips, which were then as thick as a dollar, were passed under a stamp, which punched out the coins about 120 a minute. They were continually being examined by various men who now and then threw out imperfect ones. They were then passed on to another room where there was a perfect din of machinery. They were now passed under an
|
|---|
