 This is Section 39 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. Part 3 The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 23, 1864, The New Chinese Temple. Being duly provided with passes through the courtesy of our cultivated barbaric friend Ah Wei, outside business agent of the Ning-Yong Company, we visited the New Chinese Temple again yesterday in company with several friends. After suffocating in the smoke of burning punk and josh lights, and the infernal odors of opium and all kinds of edibles cooked in an un-Christian manner, until we were becoming imbued with Buddhism and beginning to lose our nationality, and in vibe, unasked, Chinese instincts, we finally found Ah Wei, who roused us from our lethargy and saved us to our religion and our country by merely breathing the old touching words, so simple and yet so impressive, and with also familiar to those whose blessed privilege it has been to be reared in the midst of a lofty and humanizing civilization, how do, gentlemen, take a drink? By the magic of that one phrase, our noble American instincts were spirited back to us again in all their pristine beauty and glory. The polished cabinet of wines and liquors stood on a table in one of the gorgeous halls of the temple, and behold, an American, with those same noble instincts of his race, has been worshipping there before us, Mr. Stiggers of the Alta. His photograph lay there, the countenance subdued by a customed wine, and reposing upon it appeared that same old smile of serene and ineffable imbecility which has so endeared it to all whose happiness it has been to look upon it. That apparition filled us with forebodings. They proved to be well-founded. A sad Chinaman, the sanctified barkeeper of the temple, threw open the cabinet with a sigh, exposed the array of empty decanters, sighed again, murmured, By and by, Stiggans been here, and burst into tears. No one with any feeling would have tortured the poor pagan for further explanations when manifestly none were needed, and we turned away in silence, and dropped a sympathetic tear in a fragrant rat-pie which had just been brought in to be set before the great God Josh. The temple is thoroughly fitted up now, and is resplendent with tinsel and all descriptions of finery. The house, and its embellishments, cost about eighty thousand dollars. About the fifth of September it will be thrown open for public inspection, and will be well worth visiting. There is a band of tapestry extending around a council room in the second storey, which is beautifully embroidered in a variety of intricate designs wrought in birds' feathers, and gold and silver thread, and silk fibers of all colors. It cost a hundred and fifty dollars a yard, and was made by hand. The temple was dedicated last Friday night, and since then priests and musicians have kept up the ceremonies with noisy and unflagging zeal. The priests march backwards and forward, reciting prayers or something in a droning sing-song way, varied by discordant screeches somewhat like the cawing of crows, and they kneel down and get up and spin around and march again, and still the infernal racket of gongs, drums, and fiddles goes on with its hideous accompaniment, and still the spectator grows more and more smothered and dizzy in the close atmosphere of punk smoke and opium fumes. On a divan in one hall, two priests clad in royal robes of figured blue silk and crimson skull-caps, lay smoking opium, and had kept it up until they looked as drunk and spongy as the photograph of the mild and beneficent stiggers. One of them was a high aristocrat and a distinguished man among the China men, being no less a personage than the chief priest of the temple, and sing-song, or president of the great Ningyang company. His fingernails are actually longer than the fingers they adorn, and one of them is twisted in spirals like a corkscrew. There was one room half full of priests, all fine, dignified, intelligent looking men like Ah Wei, and all dressed in long blue silk robes and blue and red-topped skull-caps, with broad brims turned up all around like wash-basins. The new temple is ablaze with gilded ornamentation, and those who are fond of that sort of thing would do well to stand ready to accept the forthcoming public invitation. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 23, 1864, inexplicable news from San Jose. We have before us a letter from an intelligent correspondent dated Sa-Rose, San Jose, last Sunday. We had previously ordered this correspondent to drop us a line in case anything unusual should happen in San Jose during the period of his sojourn there. Now that we have got his chatty letter, however, we prefer, for reasons of our own, to make extracts from it instead of publishing it in full. Considering the expense we were at in sending a special correspondent so far, we are sorry to be obliged to entertain such a preference. The very first paragraph in this blurred and scrawling letter pictured our friend's condition, and filled us with humiliation. It was abhorrent to us to think that we, who had so well earned and so proudly borne the appellation of M.T., the moral phenomenon, should live to have such a letter addressed to us. It begins thus. Mr. Mark Twain, sir, Sa-Rose's beautiful place, flowers, or maybe its me, smells delishes, like sp-sp-sp-e-e-rits, turpentine, hiccups again, don't mind them, had them three days. As we remarked before, it is very humiliating. So is the next paragraph. Full of newspaper men, reporters, one from Alta, one from Flag, one from Bulletin, two from Mooring Call, one from Sacramento Union, one from Carson Independent, and All Drunk, All Drunk But Me, by George. I am astonished. The next paragraph is still worse. Been out to Leyland of the Occidental, and Livingston in the Warham Springs, and Steve, with four buggies and a horse, which is a s-plen-ed place, s-plen-ed place. Here follow compliments to Nolan, conductor of the morning train, for his kindness in allowing the writer to ride on the engine, where he could have room to enjoy himself strong, you know, and to the engineer for his generosity in stopping at nearly every station to give people a chance to come on board, you understand. Then his wandering thoughts turn again affectionately to Sa-Rose, and its wonders. Sa-Rose's lovely place, shade-trees all down both side streets, and in the middle, and elsewhere, and gardens, second street back of Connannel Hotel, with a new church and a tall scaffolding. I watched her an hour, but can't understand it. I don't see how they got her in. I don't see how they're going to get her out. Corral'd for good, perhaps. Them hiccups again. Comes from s-associating with drunken beasts. Our special next indulges in some model and felicity over the prospect of riding back to the city in the night on the back of the fire-breathing locomotive, and this suggests to his mind a song which he remembers to have heard somewhere. That is, all he remembers about it, though, for the finer details of its language appear to have caved into a sort of general chaos among his recollections. The bower stood on the burring dock, whence all but him had f-f-flo-ed, the flumes that lit the rattles back sh-sh-shan round him or the shed. I don't know what's the matter with that song. It don't appear to have any sense in it, somehow. But she used to be about the fine's fusion. Soothing slumber overtook the worn and weary pilgrim at this point, the world may never know what beautiful thought it met upon the threshold and drove back within the portals of his brain to perish in forgetfulness. After this effort we trust the public will bear with us if we allow our special correspondent to rest from his exhausting labours for a season, a long season, say, a year or two. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 23, 1864. Comanche Items. Sanitary Contributions. Business is progressing in lively style at the monitor-yard. Some two hundred and seventy-five hands, including about fifty boys, swarm in and about the progressing hull, and all appear to work with a will under the keen super-intending eye of Mr. Ryan and his able assistants. On Saturday evening, after the men had struck work, they were invited to assist at a grand flag-raising. A tall, tapering pole was planted amid general enthusiasm, and a splendid American ensign hoisted to the truck with cheers to its constellated glories and toasts for its ultimate triumph. Mr. J. W. Willard, the gentleman who attends to the contribution box placed at the entrance gate for aid to the Sanitary Commission fund, informs us that visitors contribute their two bits with cheerfulness. In many instances, coin of larger denomination are dropped, and change refused to be taken. On Sunday, at general visiting time, the amount contributed was two hundred and seventy-three dollars, and yesterday the box received from fifty to sixty dollars. The monitor box promises a good source. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 24, 1864. All that Mr. Stiggers of the Alta has to say about his monstrous conduct in the Ning Yang Temple, day before yesterday, in drinking up all the liquors in the establishment, and breaking the heart of the wretched Chinaman in whose charge they were placed, a crushing exposure of which we conceived it our duty to publish yesterday, is the following. We found a general festival, a sort of celestial, free and easy, going on, on arrival, and were waited on in the most polite manner by Ah Wee, who, although a young man, is thoroughly well-educated, very intelligent, and speaks English quite fluently. With him we took a glass of wine and a cigar before the high altar, and with a general shaking hands all around, our part of the ceremonies was concluded. That is the coolest piece of effrontery we have met within many a day. He concluded his part of the ceremonies by taking a glass of wine and a cigar. We should think a man who had acted as Mr. Stiggers did upon that occasion would feel like keeping perfectly quiet about it. Such flippant gaiety of language ill becomes him under the circumstances. We are prepared now to look upon the most flagrant departures from propriety on the part of that misguided young creature without astonishment. We would not even be surprised if his unnatural instincts were to prompt him to come back at us this morning, an attempt to exonerate himself in his feeble way, from the damning charge we have fastened upon him of gobbling up all the sacred whiskey belonging to those poor uneducated Chinamen, and otherwise strewing his path with destruction and devastation, and leaving nothing but tears and lamentation, and starvation and misery behind him. We should not even be surprised if he were to say hard things about us and expect people to believe them. He may possibly tremble and be silent, but it would not be like him if he did. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 24, 1864. A dark transaction. A gloom pervaded the police court, as the sable visages of Mary Wilkinson and Maria Brooks, with their cloud of witnesses, entered within its consecrated walls, each to prosecute and defend, respectively, in counter-charges of assault and battery. The cases were consolidated, and crimination and recrimination ruled the hour. Mary said she was a meek-hearted Christian who loved her enemies, including Maria, and had prayed for her on the very morning of the day when the latter threw a pail of water and a rock against her. Maria said she didn't throw, that she wasn't a Christian herself, and that Mary had the very devil in her. The case would always have remained in doubt, but Mrs. Hammond overshadowed the court, and flashed defiance at counsel from her eyes, while indignation and the eloquence burst from her heaving bosom, like the long pent-up fires of a volcano, whenever any one presumed to intimate that her statement might be improved in point of credibility, by a slight explanation. Even the gravity of the court was somewhat disturbed, when three hundred weight of black majesty, hauteur, and conscious virtue rolled onto the witness-stand, like the four-quarter of a sun-burnt wail, a living embodiment of Desdemona, Othello, Jupiter, Josh, and Juhilicans. She appeared as counsel for Maria Brooks, and scornfully repudiated the relationship when Citizen Sam Platt, Esquire, prefaced his interrogation with the endearing auntie. "'I am not your auntie,' she roared. "'I am Mrs. Hammond,' upon which the Citizen S. P. Esquire repeated his assurances of distinguished regard, and caved a little. Mrs. Hammond rolled off the stand, and out of the courtroom, like the fragment of a thundercloud, leaving the congregation, as she called it, in convulsions. Mary Brooks and Mary Wilkinson were both convicted of assault and battery, and ordered to appear for a sentence. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 24, 1864. In Gratitude George Johnson yesterday had his roommate M. Fink arrested for stealing one hundred and fourteen dollars from him. Johnson says Fink is an old friend of his, and came to him three months ago and said he had no money, could get no work to do, and had no place to sleep. He had previously been tending bar at the Mazurka Saloon. Johnson has shared his bed with him, and paid his washing and board bills from that time until a few weeks ago, when the fellow got a situation of some kind on one of the steamers. He still continued to share Johnson's room, in the Wells Building, corner of Clay and Montgomery streets, however, when in port. Johnson left him in bed yesterday morning early, and when he returned, he missed his money and his friend, the former from the bureau drawer and the latter from the bed. We consider that this only confirms what we have always said, namely that the heart of man is desperately wicked. San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 24, 1864. Police Contributions Yesterday, F. L. Post, property clerk of the police department, paid over the fourth and fifth installments of the monthly contributions of the police force to the Sanitary Fund, granting, in the aggregate, to a fraction under $500. This makes a total of $2,564 in gold received by the Sanitary Commission from the same source since the beginning of the present year, and speaks volumes for the liberality and patriotism of our police. Chief Burke contributes $15 monthly, Officer Cook $12.5, Officer Hesse $12. Captain's Lees and Baker $10 each, and none of the members of the force less than $5. These donations are purely voluntary. While upon this subject we would mention that R. G. Sneath, treasurer of the Sanitary Committee, designs having a beautiful certificate engraved, suitable for framing, as a parlor ornament, and one of these will be filled out and presented to each person who contributes $10 for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Union. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 25, 1864, The Theatres, etc. Metropolitan. Mazepa was performed last evening in the presence of about 2,000 people. The personation of the Tarter Prince was assumed by the manager as herself, Mrs. Emily Jordan. The part involves some rather risky horsemanship and, considering the sultryness of the weather, a refreshing scantiness of clothing, which, perhaps, had not the least to do with causing the presence of the crowd. We suppose, as Mrs. Malaprope says, comparisons are odorous, but we must give Jordan the credit of doing the runs in better style than Menken. The general performance of the role had not the dash and abandon of that many-named woman, but the equestrian portion was decidedly superior, and it surprises us to learn that the actress, up to the time of consenting to play the part, had been entirely unfamiliar with equestrianism. We must, therefore, add to her merit of gracefulness, the quality of courage, moral and physical. It would make the spectacle more generally effective if greater attention were paid to other parts of it than that assigned to Mazepa. The scenery and appointments are very well indeed, but the cast is miserably defective. The people act with a hesitation and timidity that lead one to believe they expected the wild horse to break loose from its halterings behind the scenes and distribute a few kicks among them, which, by the way, not a few of the supers richly deserve. Some of the combats were ridiculous, and were openly derided by the audience. Mr. Phelps, who deserves every credit for his untiring industry and ability as a stage-manager, had better get those gay swordsmen together and drill them thoroughly. Mazepa will be repeated to-night, and every night this week, until further notice. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 25, 1864. The Lady's Fair. The Great Union Hall, in Howard Street, yesterday afternoon, was swarming with a busy hive of ladies and artisans, hurrying up the decorations and working against time in the effort to get all things in readiness for the Great Fair on behalf of the Christian Commission, which was to begin in the evening. The chaos of flags, evergreens, framework, timbers, etc., was already beginning to take upon itself outlines of grace and forms of beauty under the deft handling of the ladies and their assistants. A charming floral temple stands in the center of the hall. It is octagonal in shape, is composed of a cluster of evergreen arches which come together at the top like the rafters of a dome, and are surmounted by an eagle, not a live one. The bases upon which these arches rest form counters, whereupon are displayed baskets of fresh flowers for sale. One or two large bouquets among them are perfect miracles of beauty. A succession of ample arches, swathed in evergreens and draped with flags and embellished with various designs, extends entirely around the sides of the hall. Under these are miniature shops in which the loveliest possible clerks will stand and dispose of all manner of wares at ruinously moderate prices, considering the object to which the prophets are to be applied. There is one arch which bears this motto, Santa Clara's offering to the soldiers. And under it were five handsome young ladies and two pretty glass work-baskets laden with fresh flowers, a most extraordinary offering to an army of wounded soldiers that occurred to us. Over other alcoves were such motos as God Is Our Trust, M.E. Churches, In Hock Signo Vincis, surmounted by a stately cross, Union Is Strength, etc. Number one of these alcoves will be occupied by ladies from Oakland. Number two by Ms. Baker and her school of this city. Number three by members of Dr. Wadsworths and Dr. Anderson's Churches, Presbyterian. Number four is erected by Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians of Santa Clara. Number five by the United Methodists of San Francisco. Number six by the Congregationalists. Number seven by the Episcopalians. Number eight by members of Mr. Kittredge's congregation. Number nine and ten by the Baptists. At the left of the stage, under a splendor of silken flags, the smallest and fairest of hands will dispense some of the most useful and useless things to be found in the fair—cigars and soap. That sentence does not seem to sound right somehow, but there is no time now to skirmish around it and find out what is the matter with it. At the other corner of the stage is the Christian soda fountain. At the right of the entrance door they were building a moss-covered well around an old oaken bucket which is to be filled with lemonade. Why not Bay Rum, or Jamaican Rum, or something of that kind? This is Jacob's Well, and will be carried on exclusively by Rachel in the costume of her day. On the left of the entrance is a cool, dripping grotto built by some counterfeiter of nature out of paste-board rocks. The effect is heightened by pendant sprays of Spanish moss, and a stuffed duck sitting placidly on a shelf in the grotto renders the deception complete. No duck could look more complacent or more perfectly satisfied with his condition or more natural or more like a genuine stuffed duck than he does. It was hard to resist the temptation to squeeze his shelf to see if he would squawk. One of the reception rooms was filled with fine oil paintings loaned by the artists and picture-dealers of the city. The Opening By half-past eight in the evening Union Hall was pretty well crowded with gentlemen and ladies, and the handsome decorations of the place showed to all the better advantage by contrast with the shifting panorama of life and light by which they were surrounded. The famous Presidio Band opened the ceremonies with superb music, after which the Reverend Mr. Blaine, pastor of the Howard Street Methodist Church, offered up a fervent prayer for the success of this effort in behalf of the Christian Commission. Mayor Coon was then introduced, and delivered an earnest and eloquent address in which he set forth the objects had in view by the Commission, and urged the importance of extending to it a generous aid and encouragement. W. H. L. Barnes Esquire followed in a stirring speech of some length which was well received. The several speakers labored under great disadvantage because of the immense space it was necessary to fill with their voices, and the noise and confusion consequent on such a vast gathering of people, but a fraction of whom were seated, and who were too impatient to stand still many minutes together. After a short interval, a fragile young man appeared suddenly in the center of the stage, dazzled the audience for a single second like a spark, and went out. Previous to going out, however, he whispered something, and immediately afterward, the Utter Peans, who have so often delighted our citizens with their music, stepped upon the stage and sang a beautiful quartet about the flag. During the course of the evening Mrs. Grotchen sang twice, as did also Mrs. Tourney. The singers found it as hard work to sing in such a place as the speakers did to talk. Great credit is due the Presidio Band, the Utter Peans, and the two ladies for volunteering their services last evening without compensation. Tonight, the grand feature will be a series of beautiful tableaux, in which the most lovely young ladies and gentlemen in the city will appear. Charles Alper's band have volunteered for this evening, and there will doubtless be some fine vocal music in addition. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 26, 1864. A Confederacy Caged. When wine is in, wit is out, so remarked Judge Shepard yesterday morning, when J. F. Dolan offered intoxication as an excuse for belching treason, and, by the way, speaking of Judge Shepard, it is every day becoming more and more apparent that in his incumbency the people have got the right man in the right place. The judge further observed that when a man is under the influence of liquor, being too bold and independent for caution, he is very likely to let out his real sentiments, and that although this Dolan pretends to be a loyal man when sober, he had no confidence in the profession of loyalty in a man who, when intoxicated, would heap curses on everything pertaining to the union cause. Declare himself a strong Jefferson Davis man, wish for the destruction of the Union Army, and that he was in the Southern Army with a musket on his shoulder, as did Dolan. Mr. Riley, in whose saloon Dolan began his disloyal manifestation, and who is evidently a thoroughgoing Union man, created a sensation in the courtroom while testifying, very decidedly in his favor, by giving forcible expression to his feelings on the subject. Dolan had gone up to his counter and called for a Jefferson Davis drink. He wanted none other than a Jefferson Davis drink. Mr. R told him he'd be damned if anybody could get a Jefferson Davis drink in his house, and incontinently turned him out, telling him at the same time that, but for the fact of his being drunk, he would give him a damn thrashing. Dolan, notwithstanding his good loyalty when sober, was held in the sum of one thousand dollars to appear at the county court. A little loyal when sober, and intently disloyal when the tongue strings are loosened by liquor, and such are copper heads. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 26, 1864. Good from louder back. During the examination of Dolan yesterday for uttering treasonable language, when Mr. Lawrence, Dolan's counsel, proposed to offer evidence to prove that the defendant was not a disloyal man when sober, Mr. Louderback, the young prosecuting attorney of the police court, happily observed that it would be like proving a man's piety as an excuse in a prosecution for using profane and obscene language. The defense was squarely met and waived the excuse. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 27, 1864. How to cure him of it. In accord in Mina Street, between first and second, they keep a puppy tied up, which is insignificant as to size, but formidable as to yelp. We are unable to sleep after nine o'clock in the morning on account of it. Sometimes the subject of these remarks begins at three in the morning and yowls straight ahead for a week. We have lain awake many mornings out of pure distress on account of that puppy, because we know that if he does not break himself of that habit, it will kill him. It is bound to do it. We have known thousands and thousands of cases like it. But it is easily cured. Give the creature a double handful of strychnine, dissolved in a quart of prusic acid, and it will soothe him down and make him as quiet and docile as a dried herring. The remedy is not expensive and is at least worthy of a trial, even for the novelty of the thing. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 27, 1864. The Fair. The success of the Fair, the Christian Commission, is no longer conjectural. It is a demonstrated fact. The receipts of the opening night were over eleven hundred dollars, those of the second, eighteen hundred dollars, and as there was a considerable larger crowd in attendance last evening than upon either of the former occasions, it is fair to presume that the receipts amounted to at least two thousand dollars, making a total up to the present time of about five thousand dollars. It is proposed to continue the Fair almost a fortnight longer, and in as much as its popularity is steadily increasing, it requires no gift of prophecy to enable one to pronounce it a grand success in advance. The Prince of Bands, the Presidio, volunteered again last evening and delighted the audience with its superb music. There was vocal music, also, of the highest degree of excellence. The first in order was a cavatina by Mrs. Gleason, followed by a ballad, Brightest Angel, by Mrs. Shattuck's, Grand Aria from Maritana, by Mrs. John Gregg of the Italian opera, Who Will Care for Mother Now, Ballad by Miss Mowry, Heart Bowed Down by Weight of Woe, from Opera of the Bohemian Girl by John Gregg. These several musical gems were well received and highly appreciated. This evening the Tableau will be resumed as follows. One, Landing of the Pilgrims. Two, Crinolin Avenged. Three, Statuary. Four, Execution of Lady Jane Gray. Five, Winning the Gloves. Six, Statuary. Fair Rosamund and Queen Eleanor. The Tableau, the other evenings, were got ten up in fine taste and gave great satisfaction, albeit, while the one representing the Queen of Sheba, at the court of King Solomon, was before the house, the effect was unduly heightened by an assistant in citizens' dress, rushing balled headed into court, before he discovered that the curtain was still up. The court betrayed surprise, and so would the original Solomon, if the same man in the same modern costume had ever appeared so unexpectedly before him. The intrusion was not premeditated, the gentleman was very deaf, so deaf indeed that he could not see that the curtain had not yet been lowered. We, forbear, to urge any one to go to the fair tonight, for the chances are that there will be people enough there to strain the sides of the building, a little, anyhow. The San Francisco Daily Morning call August 27, 1864, a rest of another of the robbing gang. Sheriff Adams learned a few days ago, says the San Jose Patriot of the 24th, that a man named R. F. Hall, a farmer and stock raiser living on the Salinas, fifteen miles south of San Juan, was an accessory before the fact in the robbing of the Los Angeles Stages, that it was at his, Hall's, house, the robbers were harbored, and that he lent them a gun and hatchet with a full knowledge of their felonious purpose. These facts coming to the mind of the Sheriff, he dispatched under Sheriff Hall last week to make the arrest, which he succeeded in doing without difficulty, on Friday last. The under Sheriff found R. F. Hall at home, upon his ranch, took him to Monterey, and surrendered him to the authorities of that county. The under Sheriff states that Hall is an intelligent man, and a well-to-do stock raiser, having six hundred head of cattle, a wife, and three children. We learned that after long conversations with both Hall and his wife, the under Sheriff obtained a good deal of information in regard to the combination of robbing gangs, and finding the officer acquainted with Hall's complicity with the robbers, a confession of the facts was obtained from him. Hall, like all others engaged in these schemes of robbing, is a secessionist, and both he and his wife admitted that all connected with the band were bound to each other by horrid oaths to revenge any punishment inflicted on them. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 30, 1864. Enthusiastic hard money demonstration. The era of our prosperity is about to dawn on us. If it don't, it had order. The jingle of coin will still be heard in our pockets and tilles. It's all right. The Hard Money Association held an adjourned meeting at the police courtroom last night, for the express purpose of considering dollars. The meeting was an adjourned one. It stayed adjourned. It wasn't anything else. The room was dimly lighted. It looked like the Hall of Aeolus. Sadly sat some ten or a dozen of the galvanized protectors of our prosperity. They looked for all the world like an infernal council in conclave. They were dumb. But what great plans for the suppression of the green-backed dragon were born in that silence still remains hid in the arcana of the mysterious cabal. They said nothing. They did nothing. Like fixed statues they sat, all wrapped in contemplation of their mighty scheme. They didn't adjourn. For from the first it was an adjourned meeting. And it stayed adjourned. Soon they all left. Parted quietly, mysteriously, awfully. The lights were turned out, and nothing more. Money is still hard. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 30, 1864. Chinese Railroad Obstructions. The Chinese in this state are becoming civilized to a fearful extent. One of them was arrested the other day, in the act of preparing for a grand railroad disaster on the Sacramento Valley Railroad. If these people continue to imbibe American ideas of progress, they will be turning their attention to highway robbery and other enlightened pursuits. They are industrious. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August 31, 1864. Shiner No. 1. That industrious wild shiner with his heavy brass machine for testing the strength of human muscles is around again in his original swallowtail gray coat. That same wanderer, coat and machine, have been ceaselessly on the move throughout California and Washu for a year or more, and still they look none the worse for where. And still the generous proposition goeth up from the wanderer's lips in the by-places and upon the corners of the street. One pull for a bit. Gentlemen and any man that pulls eighteen hundred pounds can ride over again without expense. And still the wanderer seeketh the eighteen hundred pounder up and down in the earth, and findeth him not. And still the public strive for that gratis pull, and still they are disappointed. Still do they fall short of the terms by a matter of half a ton or so. Go your ways, and give the ubiquitous shiner a chance to find the man upon whom it is his mission upon earth to confer the blessing of a second pull without expense. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August thirty first, 1864, Mayhem. Gentle Julia, who spends eleven months of each year in the county jail, on an average, bit a joint clear off one of the fingers of Johanna O'Hara, an old offender, chicken thief, in the dark cell in the station house yesterday. The other women confined there say that is the way Gentle Julia always fights. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call August thirty first, 1864, Strong as Samson and Meek as Moses. Ellen Clark and Peter Connerty were up yesterday, charged with an assault and battery committed on Dr. S. S. Foster, gymnast and athlete, at Callaghan's building on DuPont Street. The doctor says he was assailed by these persons without any provocation on his part, and suffered at their hands diverse indignities and abuses. But being under a vow made some years since never to strike any one thereafter, no matter what might be the aggravation, he quietly dropped his cane, folded his hands, and submitted. King Solomon says, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence. Behold what a glorious fellow Dr. Foster must be. He declared that although no three men in the profession can handle him, yet if a person were to spit in his face he would not resent it. That's a high order of Christian meekness and forbearance, a sublime instance. Other witnesses, however, tell a story less credible to this prodigy of physical and moral firmness, and as they were about equally balanced in the weight of their testimony, the doctor was allowed time to procure some preponderating evidence. Although the case was held over until to-day. CHAPTER I The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 1, 1864. The Cosmopolitan Hotel besieged. As a proof that it is good policy to advertise and that nothing that appears in a newspaper is left unread, we will state that the mere mention in yesterday's papers that the Cosmopolitan Hotel would be thrown open for public inspection caused that place to be besieged at an early hour yesterday evening by some thirty thousand men, women and children, and the chances are that more than as many more had read the invitation, but were obliged to forego the pleasure of accepting it. By eight o'clock the broad halls and stairways of the building from cellar to roof were densely crowded with people of all ages, sexes, characters and conditions in life, and a similar army were collected in the street outside unable to gain admission there was no room for them. The lowest estimate we heard of the number of persons who passed into the hotel was twenty thousand, and the highest sixty thousand, so we split the difference and call it thirty thousand. And among this vast assemblage of refined gentlemen, elegant ladies, and tender children, was mixed a lot of thieves, ruffians and vandals. They stole everything they could get their hands on, silverware from the dining room, handkerchiefs from gentlemen, veils and victorians from ladies, and even gobbled up sheets, shirts and pillowcases in the laundry, and made off with them. They wantonly destroyed costly parlor ornaments, and pulled down and trampled underfoot the handsome lace curtains of some of the windows. They went through Mr. Henning's room, and left him not even a sock or a boot. We observed a day or two ago that he had a bushel and a half of the latter articles stacked up at the foot of his bed. The masses, wedged together in the halls and on the staircases, grew hot and angry, and smashed each other over the head with canes, and punched each other in the face with their fists, and to stop the thieving and save loss to helpless visitors and get rid of the pickpockets. The gas had to be turned off in some parts of the house. At ten o'clock, when we were there, there was a constant stream of people passing out of the hotel, and other streams pouring towards it from every direction. To be disappointed in their hopes of seeing the wonders within it, for the proprietors having already suffered to the extent of several thousands of dollars in thefts and damages to furniture, were unwilling to admit decent people any longer for fear of another invasion of rascals among them. Another grand rush was expected to follow the letting out of the theatres. The Cosmet Politan still stands, however, and today it opens for good, and for the accommodation of all of them that do eat and sleep and have the wherewithal to pay for it. The San Francisco Daily Morning Calls attempt a first, 1864, Rinkin School, Militia. Before disbanding for a fortnight's furlough, the boys connected with Rinkin School had a grand dress parade yesterday. They are classed into regular military companies and officered as follows by boys chosen from their own ranks. Company A. Captain John Welch. B. Captain John Warren. C. Captain Henry Tucker. D. Captain William Thompson. E. Captain Robinson. F. Captain Charles Redman. G. Captain Cyrus Myers. H. Captain Henry Tabor. Companies I and J have no regularly elected officers, we are told. The drummers of the regiment are two youngsters named Douglas Williams and John Seaborn, and their talent for making a noise amounts almost to inspiration. Both are first class drummers. The Rinkin boys have been carefully drilled in military exercises for a year now and have acquired a proficiency which is astonishing. They go through with the most elaborate maneuvers without hesitating and without making a mistake. To execute every order promptly and perfectly has become second nature to them and requires no more reflection than it does to a practiced border to go to dinner when he hears the gong ring. The word drill is the proper one. Those boys' legs and arms have been drilled into a comprehension of those orders so that they execute them mechanically, even though the restless mind may be thinking of anything else in the world at the moment. Professor Robinson has been the military instructor of the Rinkin Regiment for several months past. The school exercises, earlier in the day, were very interesting and consisted of dialogues, declamations, vocal and instrumental music, calisthenics, etc. The Humours of the Draft, a sort of comedy illustrative of the shifts to which unwarlike patriots are put in order to encompass exemption, was well played by a number of the school boys and was received with shouts of laughter. Douglas Williams played on his drum a solo which would have been a happy accompaniment to one of our choicest earthquakes. A young girl sang that lugubrious did he, wrap the flag around me, boys, and the extraordinary purity and sweetness of her voice actually made pleasant music of it, impossible as such a thing might seem to anyone acquainted with that marvellous piece of composition. The principal, Mr. Pelton's Heir, an American sovereign of eight summers and no winters at all, since his life has been passed here, where it has pleased the Almighty to admit that season, gave a recitation in French, and one in German, and from the touching pathos and expression which he threw into the latter, and the liquid richness of his accent, we are satisfied the subject was a noble one and wrought in beautiful language, but we could not testify unqualifiedly in this respect, without access to a translation. The Rincan school was mustered out of service yesterday evening for the term of two weeks. Fine Picture of Reverend Mr. King California and Nevada Territory are flooded with distressed-looking abortions done in oil, in water- colors, in crayon, in lithography, in photography, in sugar, in plaster, in marble, in wax, and in every substance that is malleable or chisellable, or that can be marked on, or scratched on, or painted on, or which by its nature can be compelled to lend itself to a relentless and unholy persecution and distortion of the features of the great and good man who has gone from our midst, Reverend Thomas Starr King. We do not believe these misguided artistic lunatics meant to confuse the liniments, and finally destroy and drive out from our memories the cherished image of our lost orator, not just the contrary. We believe their motive was good, but we know their execution was atrocious. We look upon these blank, monotonous, overfed and sleepy-looking pictures and ask, with Dr. Bellows, where was the seat of this man's royalty? But we ask in vain of these wretched counterfeits. There is no more life or expression in them than you may find in the soggy, upturned face of a pickled infant dangling by the neck in a glass jar among the trophies of a doctor's back office any day. But there is one perfect portrait of Mr. King extant, with all the tenderness and goodness of his nature, and all the power and grandeur of his intellect drawn to the surface, as it were, and stamped upon the features with matchless skill. This picture is in the possession of Dr. Bellows, and is the only one we have seen in which we could discover no substantial ground for fault finding. It is a life-size, outlined photograph, elaborately wrought out and finished in crayon by Mrs. Frances Molyneux Gibson of this city, and has been presented by her to Reverend Dr. Bellows to be sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission. It will probably be exhibited for a while at the Mechanics Fair, after which it will be disposed of, as above mentioned. Dr. Bellows desires to keep it, and will do so if bids for it do not take altogether too high a flight. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 1, 1864. The theaters, et cetera. Mr. Masset's lecture. Drifting about. The printer, having by mistake announced in the big bills the entertainment of Mr. Masset for last night, this is to say that tonight is the occasion when he will drift before his audience, spread his sail to the popular breeze, and make the waves ripple with prose, poetry, humor, and song, imitation, incident, and story. There is enough a variety to please the most exacting, fun enough for the most funny, humor for the gay, pathos for the serious, and whims for the eccentric. He will do a greater variety of things than any other man ever attempted before an audience in one night, and brevity will be united with the variety. As the entertainment is announced as for one night only, those who would hear and see Masset should go to-night. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 1, 1864. Strategy, my boy. One of our new policemen was lying exceedingly low in a Chinese alley the other night, for the purpose of surprising a loafer who was in the habit of stealing the bread of a butcher, the butcher thinking it was not meat that he should do so. While lying prone on the ground, the officer was discovered by a vigilant Chinaman, Aue. The former feigned obliviousness. The benevolent Chinaman shook the prostrate form, but meeting with no response, decided that the ghost of the policeman had gone to another beat, and concluded to administer on his estate. John took an inventory. Item, one pistol, when suddenly the officer sprung to his feet and took John. He was brought before Judge Shepard, yesterday morning, charged with petty larceny. His counsel, Mr. Zabrisky, said that any innocent person might go through a man's pockets under similar circumstances. The argument was overpowering, and Aue was discharged. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 2, 1864, The Mechanics Fair. The stern, practical appearance, which the great array of machinery and all manner of industrial implements has here to foregiven to the pavilion, is being softened and relieved now by a pleasant sprinkling of fresh flowers and beautiful pictures, and by the time the art halls are fully dressed with paintings, and the central tower with blooming plants, and the fountain below filled with limpid water, and the thousand lights ablaze above a mass of people in ceaseless motion, the place will look as vivacious and charming as it now looks tumbled and shapeless. And while on this flight it is proper to state that in the east wing of the pavilion Mr. Beers will have an excellent and commodious restaurant, where visitors can obtain anything or everything they may choose to eat or drink, and in quantities to suit the capacities of all stomachs. How naturally doth the cultivated human mind ascend from art and horticulture to hash and hominy! The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 2, 1864, Lost Child. A fat, chubby infant about two years old was found by the police yesterday evening, lying fast asleep in the middle of Folsom Street between 6th and 7th, and in dangerous proximity to the railroad track. We saw the cheerful youngster in the city jail last night, sitting contentedly in the arms of a negro man who was employed about the establishment. He had been taking another sleep by the stove in the jail kitchen. Possibly the following description of the waif may be recognized by some distressed mother who did not rest well last night. A fat face, serious countenance, considerable dignity of bearing, flaxen hair, eyes dark bluish gray, by gaslight at least, a little soiled red jacket, brown frock with pinkish squares on it half an inch across, kid gator shoes, and red striped stockings, evidently admires his legs, and answers da-da to each and all questions, with strict impartiality. Anyone having lost an offspring of the above description can get it again by proving property and paying for this advertisement. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 3, 1864, Suicide Out of Principle. The Grass Valley National of Tuesday in the evening tells a story of a Chinaman named Ah-Sin, who committed suicide in a very civilized way, impelled there too by an enlightened motive. Ah-Sin loved to smoke opium. He had, it may be supposed, a quantity of his favorite drug, but lacked a pipe. In an evil hour, when suffering for the want of a smoke, he chanced upon a pipe worth four bits or a dollar, and incontinently gobbled it up. At least, that was the charge made against him by some other Chinaman who were so angry with him for thus disgracing the national character for honesty that they could not take time to starve the culprit to death in the usual manner but undertook to beat him to death. A policeman rescued him from the hands of the executioners, and for safety placed him in the Calibus. John called for his pipe and his opium bag, took a farewell smoke, and then, taking his sash, a dirty silk one from his waist, hung himself with it, with a great deal of difficulty and determination. The policeman discovered him dead when he went him to give him his regular tea. He was in a kneeling position, from which it may be inferred that he died while saying his prayers to Josh. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 3, 1864 Labyrinth Garden Visitors to the Mechanics Fair today should examine carefully the pretty and ingenious Labyrinth Garden in miniature, gotten out by Mr. Frank Staglich, and situated near the floral tower. It is easy to see your way into it, and the paths are very straight, but to see your way out again is the impossible feature of the thing. Although this garden, with its endless complication of drives and avenues, is only about as large as an ordinary lunch-table, the grass-plats, flower-beds, and rows of microscopic trees, with which it is luxuriously embellished, are all alive and growing. There are within the garden 125 perfect trees, from one to three inches high, belonging to many different species of California's lordliest forest monarchs, among which are the giant redwood, and several kinds of pines. The long rows of Lilliputian shrubs, which enclose the garden, are vigorous young cedar trees, and there are three thousand of them. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 3, 1864, the lost child reclaimed. The child which we mentioned yesterday, as having been found asleep in the middle of Folsom Street by the police, and taken to the city jail, has been called for collected, and carried away by its father. It knew its father in a moment, and we believe that it is considered to be a severe test of smartness in a child. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 4, 1864, the Californian. This sterling literary weekly has changed hands, both in the matter of proprietorship and editorial management. Mr. Webb has sold the paper to Captain Ogden, a gentleman of fine literary attainments, an able writer, and the possessor of a happy bank account. Three qualifications which in the lump cannot fail to ensure the continued success of the Californian. Mr. Frank Brett Hart will assume the editorship of the paper. Some of the most exquisite productions which have appeared in its pages emanated from his pen, and are worthy to take rank among even Dickens' best sketches. Taking all things in consideration, if the Californian dies now, it must be by the same process that resurrected Lazarus, which we are proud to be able to state was a miracle. After faithfully laboring night and day for about four months, and publishing fifteen numbers of the best paper in its particular department ever issued on this coast, Mr. Webb will now go and rest a while on the shores of Lake Tahoe. He has chosen to rest himself by fishing, and he is wise, for the fish in Lake Tahoe are not troublesome. They will let a man rest there till he rots, and never inflict upon him the fatigue of putting on a fresh bait. Inigo has our kindest wishes for his present and future happiness, though, rot or no rot. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 4th, 1864. The Hurdle Race Yesterday The grand feature at the Bayview Park yesterday was the Hurdle Race. There were three competitors, and the winner was Wilson's circus horse, Sam. Sam has lain quiet through all the pacing and trottings and runnings, and consented to be counted on, but this Hurdle business was just his strong suit, and he stepped forward promptly when it was proposed. There was a much faster horse, Conflict, in the list, but what is natural talent to cultivation? Sam was educated in a circus and understood his business. Conflict would pass him under way, trip and turn a double somersault over the next Hurdle, and while he was picking himself up, the accomplished Sam would sail gracefully over the Hurdle and slabber past his adversary with the easy indifference of conscious superiority. Conflict made the fastest time, but he fooled away too many somersets on the Hurdles. The proverb, Seth, that he that jumpeth fences with the circus horse will I come to grief. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 4th, 1864. Domestic Silks California may branch out and become a great silk manufacturing state some day, when it becomes known that her facilities for doing so are much superior to those of most other lands. Mr. Lewis Provost of San Jose, who has a lot of silkworm eggs and cocoons on exhibition at the Mechanics Fair, says that in Europe the greater portion of every crop of silkworms get diseased and die, but in this climate they all live and come to maturity. It is impossible for them to become diseased. He also says that here it is but little trouble and requires small care and attention to raise silkworms, and that in his Department of Labor one man here can perform the work of eight in Europe and do it with comparative ease. Mr. Provost gets no opportunity to manufacture California silks, because the demand for his silkworm eggs is so great from foreign countries, and the price has paid him so liberal that he finds it more profitable to lay the eggs and ship them off than to keep them and hatch them. As fast as the worms produce them, he sends them to Italy and comes as near filling all orders from there as he can, at twelve dollars an ounce, containing forty thousand eggs. He has an order from Mexico now for five hundred ounces, but he is unable to fill it. They say that a silkworm ranch is one of the few kinds of property in this world that never fail to pay. Let Californians make a note of it, and act upon it. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 4th, 1864 Looks Like Sharp Practice The examination of Simon Lewis, the pawnbroker, charged with exacting usurious interest, was concluded yesterday in the police court. The testimony for the prosecution presents this state of facts. Adolf Warner took a watch with chain attached to the shop of the pawnbroker and pledged it for forty dollars, but did not receive the ticket which the law requires pawnbrokers to give in all cases to the person pledging an article, containing a description of the article, number of the pawn, and date of the transaction signed by the broker. When Warner's wife discovered that he had left the watch with Lewis without taking a ticket, she went herself for it, and received from the broker two tickets, one for the watch and one for the chain, purporting to evidence two separate loans of twenty dollars each, instead of one entire loan of forty dollars. The law prohibits pawnbrokers from taking a greater amount of interest than four percent on sums over twenty dollars, but on sums of twenty dollars and under they are in the habit of charging ten percent. The prosecution claims that his was but one loan, but that defendant had bifurcated the pledge so as to reduce the sums to within the limit upon which the high rates are charged, and thus compelled him to pay ten, instead of four percent. The case looked badly for the pawnbroker, but when his own books were introduced in evidence, with his own clerk to explain them, of course Lewis would be exculpated, at least in the eye of the law, that is to say he would, and he did, escape through a mere doubt, a doubt in law, but nowhere else. Lewis had the manufacturing of all the record and documentary evidence himself, and he would have been a more stupid nave than is generally to be found among pawnbrokers if he had not made it to suit his side of the case in the event of a future controversy about it. From the contradictory character of the evidence, the judge could not convict the defendant, but he delivered a short and pointed homily on the subject of honesty as the best policy, and gave notice that he would be somewhat rigorous in future complaints of that sort. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call September 4, 1864, a terrible monster caged. A most wretched criminal was brought into the police court yesterday morning on a charge of petty larceny. He stands between three and four feet in his shoes, and has arrived at the age of ten years. His name does not appear on the register, so the world must remain in ignorance of that. He is an orphan who has been provided with a home in a respectable family of this city, and is charged with having taken some chips and sticks from about Dr. Toland's fine new building, which it is supposed he uses in kindling the fires for the family he lives with. The person whose vigilance discovered grounds for suspecting this fatherless and motherless boy of the horrible crime is a carpenter who works at the building. The county is indebted to him. The little fellow came into court under a strong guard. He was terrified almost out of his senses, and looked as if he expected the judge to order his head to be chopped off at once. The matter, if entertained at all, will be heard on Monday, and in the meantime the little boy will anticipate worlds of misery. It is a matter of wonder to some that a deliberate attempt to send an indefinite number of souls to Davy Jones Locker, by one who occupies a prominent position, escapes judicial scrutiny, while the whole force, conservatorial, is hot foot in the chase after some little ragged shaver, some fledgling of St. Giles, unkempt and uncared for, who flits from corner to corner and from hole to hole, as if fleeing from his own shadow. But such persons don't understand conservatorial policy. Let the hoary-headed sinners go! They can get no worse, and soon will die off, but look sharply after the young crop. The old trunk will decay after a while and fall before the tempest, but the sapling must be hewn down. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call September 6, 1864. A Promising Artist. The large oil painting in the picture store under the rust house of the blind fiddler is the work of a very promising California artist, Mr. William Mulligan of Halesburg, formerly of St. Louis, Missouri. In the main, both the conception and execution are good, but the latter is faulty in some of the minor details. Dr. Bellows has a smaller picture, however, by the same artist, which betrays the presence of genius of a high order in the hand that lond it. The subject is a dying drummer-boy, half sitting, half reclining, upon the battlefield, with his body partly propped upon his broken drum, and his left arm hanging languidly over it. Near him lie his cap and his drumsticks, unheated, discarded, useless to him for evermore. The dash of blood upon his shirt, the dreamy, away-at-home look upon the features, the careless, resigned expression of the nervous arm tell the story. The colors in the picture are not gaudy enough to suit the popular taste, perhaps, but they represent nature truthfully, which is better. Mr. Mulligan has demonstrated in every work his hands have wrought that he is an artist of more than common ability, and he deserves a generous encouragement. One or two of his pictures will probably be exhibited at the Mechanics Fair, now being held in this city. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 6, 1864, peeping Tom of Coventry. An amorous old sinner named John Fine went to the North Beach bath-house on Sunday for a swim. Owing to the number of pounds he weighed, he was forced to wade, his weight being considerably over several stone he couldn't swim for whoever heard of stone swimming. In order to make up the deficit of fun, he went to the partition that screams the ladies' department, and peeped through a crevice. Mr. Iles, the proprietor of the establishment, witnessed the untoward scrutiny and ordered him away, but life's charms riveted fine to the spot, and he heeded not the Iles, when his person suffered under the weight of another stone. The proprietor sent a projectile which struck him in the face near the left eye. Astronomically speaking, Fine saw stars, but didn't think it a fine sight. He left at once and prosecuted Iles. Yesterday Mr. Iles was fined five dollars for assault and battery. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 6, 1864, turned out of office. Resident physician Raymond, visiting physician Geary and Matron Weeks of the city and county hospital, were all summarily bundled out of office last night by the Board of Supervisors, for alleged official neglect indifference, indolence, and general dry rot produced by long continuance in office, and apparent security in the possession of their places. Notice was given of a motion to reconsider this action, and in the meantime the two doctors and the Matron were by resolution to retain their offices until their successors were appointed. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 6, 1864, a small piece of spite. Some witless practical joker made a false entry a few days ago on a slate kept at the dead house for the information of the public concerning dead bodies found, deaths by accident, etc. The Alta, Bulletin, and Flag administered a deserved rebuke to the coroner's understrapers for permitting the entry to remain there and pass into the newspapers and mislead the public, and for this reason the slate has been removed from the office. Now it is too late in the day for such men as these to presume to deny to the public information which belongs to them and which they have a right to demand, merely to gratify a ridiculous spite against two or three reporters. It is a matter of no consequence to reporters whether the slate is kept there or not, but it is a matter of consequence to the public at large who are the real injured parties when the newspapers are denied the opportunity of conveying it to them. If the coroner permits his servants to close the door against reporters, many a man may lose a friend in the bay or by assassination or suicide and never hear of it or know anything about it. In that case the public and their servant, the coroner, are the victims, not the reporter. Coroner Sheldon needs not to be told that he is a public officer, that his doings and those of his underlings at the coffin-shop belong to the people, that the public do not recognize his right or theirs to suppress the transactions of his department of the public service, and, finally, that the people will not see the propriety of the affairs of his office being hidden from them in order that the small potato malice of his employees against two or three newspaper reporters may be gratified. Those employees have always shown a strong disinclination to tell a reporter anything about their ghastly share in the coroner's business, and it was easy to see that they longed for some excuse to abolish that slate. Their motive for such conduct did not concern reporters, but it might interest the public and the coroner if they would explain it. Those official corpse planters, always put on as many heirs as if the public and their master, the coroner, belong to them, and they had a right to do as they pleased with both. They told us yesterday that their coronial affairs should henceforth be a sealed book, and they would give us no information. As if they, a lot of $40 understrapers, had authority to proclaim that the affairs of a public office like the coroner should be kept secret from the people whose minions they are. If the credit of that office suffers from their impertinence, who is the victim, Mr. Sheldon or the reporters? We cannot suffer greatly, for we never succeeded in getting any information out of one of those fellows yet. You see the dead cart leaving the place, and ask one of them where it is bound, and without looking up from his newspaper he grunts lazily and says, Stiff, meaning that it is going in quest of the corpse of some poor creature whose earthly troubles are over. You ask one of them a dozen questions calculated to throw more light upon a meager entry in the slate, and he invariable answers, Don't know. As if the grand end and aim of his poor existence was not to know anything, and to come as near accomplishing his mission as his opportunities would permit. They would vote for General Jackson at the body snatcher's retreat, but for the misfortune that they don't know such a person ever existed. What do you suppose the people would ever know about how their interests were being attended to if the employees in all public offices were such unmitigated ignoramuses as these? One of these fellows said to us yesterday, We have taken away the slate. We are not going to give you any more information. The reporters have got too sharp. By George they know more than we do. God help the reporter that don't. It is as fervent of prayer as ever welled up from the bottom of our heart. Now a reporter can start any day and travel through the whole of the long list of employees in the public offices in the city, and in not a solitary instance will he find any difficulty in getting any information which the public have a right to know until he arrives at the inquest office of the coroner. There all knowledge concerning the dead who die in mysterious ways and mysterious places, and who may have friends and relatives near at hand who would give the world and all its wealth for even the poor consolation of knowing their fate, is denied us. Who are the sufferers by this contemptible contumacy? We, or the hundred thousand citizens of San Francisco. The responsibility of this state of things rests with the coroner, and it is only right and just that he should amend it. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 7th, 1864. Christian Fair. The ladies' fair of the Christian commission will close positively tomorrow evening. Tonight and tomorrow night there will be a sale or two at auction, but the ladies wish it distinctly understood that there will be no general auction of articles left on hand at the close of the fair. They consider that when half a dollar may be the means of saving a soldier's life they have no right to fritter away donations at a sacrifice. They have already reduced prices to cost, and in some instances even below cost, and if the articles cannot be sold at these rates they will be retained and contributed to swell the resources of the Christian commission in other portions of the state. They have a stove, a set of furs, several fine cakes, and a few other articles of value which they are anxious to dispose of before the fair closes. Those who desire to purchase will please make a note of it. About the middle of the hall, on the east side, Mrs. Alfred has, in a glass case, several bouquets done in wax by Mrs. Selam Woodworth, wife of the commander of the US ship Narragansett, which are to be given to the lady who polls the largest vote for them. It costs something to vote in that ward, and the money thus collected is to be forwarded directly to the wounded soldiers. The largest of these bouquets is an exquisite work of art and will bear the closest inspection. The silver vases, containing the smaller bouquets, were donated by Mrs. Alfred. Near at hand, the last named lady has a rare set of books which she has contributed, and which are also to be voted for, and will be presented to the pastor who shall be in the majority. Pay your poll tax and deposit your ballot. It has occurred to us, just at this moment, that if any of the barefooted disciples traveling according to their custom without purse or script should return to earth and happen into the fair, they couldn't vote, could they? Consequently it is risky, charging for votes, isn't it? Manifestly. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 7, 1864. Terrible calamity! Explosion of the steamer washews, boilers. Supposed killed, one hundred. Wounded and missing, seventy-five. Several San Franciscans among the number. Attention paid by the sacramentans to the wounded. The cause of the calamity. Scenes and incidents. Et cetera, et cetera. We compile an account of this terrible disaster from dispatches published in the evening papers. The explosion of the boilers of the washoo took place at ten o'clock, at a point just above the hog's back, about ten miles above Rio Vista, on her up-trip on Monday night. One of the boilers collapsed aflux, and, it is said, made a clean sweep aft, going overboard through the stern of the boat. The cause of this dreadful calamity, according to D. M. Anderson, the engineer, who died at the Sacramento Hospital just after he made the statement, was rotten iron in the boiler. At the time of the explosion there were one hundred and twenty-five pounds pressure on the boiler, with two cocks of solid water. The engine was high pressure. The upper works of the boat aft were completely shattered, some portions of them, with the staterooms being blown overboard. The boat had passed the hog's back about four or five minutes before the explosion. She was about twenty yards off the left bank at the time, and the whole steering gear being destroyed, she took a shear and ran ashore, her bow providentially touching a tree, to which those not injured fastened the boat. Had she not run ashore almost everybody on board would have been lost, as they could not steer the wreck, and they had no boats, the steamers sinking gradually astern. The boat was set on fire in three places, which added to the horror of the scene. The fire, however, was put out by the few who were uninjured. The Chrysopolis was a long way ahead and knew nothing of the matter. The antelope, being behind, came up and took off the wounded and a large number of the dead, and brought the first news of the sad affair to Sacramento. Measures for relief of the wounded and taking off the dead. On the arrival of the antelope at Sacramento, about half past five o'clock yesterday morning, with the terrible news, the alarm bells of the city were rung, and the Howard Association turned out to attend to the wounded the steamer had brought up. The scene for the three hours that elapsed before the antelope reached the steamer wash is described as most horrible. All who were alive had been taken ashore, but there was no shelter for them. Those of the wounded who were able to move sought shelter in the sand and brush, groaning and screaming with pain. One man who was scalded from head to foot got ashore, and in a nude state stood and screamed for help, but would not allow any covering to be put on him. A woman in a similar condition was brought up on the antelope. The steamer carried only the wounded to Sacramento. A large number of the slightly wounded who could walk or ride were taken to the rooms of the Howard Association. The Association hired the Vernon House for a hospital for the sufferers. On board of the antelope the scene was a most dreadful one. Her entire upper cabin, with the exception of the passageways, was covered with mattresses, on which the injured were lying sixty-three in number. Others were in the ladies' cabin and still others in the dining-room. Four are reported to have died on the way up. And at the time of landing others were gasping their last on the levee. At the Vernon House the Howard Association have a large number of members who, with a large force of ladies, are doing all that can be done for the sufferers. The Association also has a committee out collecting who have so far met with good success. Immediately on the arrival of the antelope, the steamer Visalia fired up and went down to the wreck to bring the bodies of the dead left there by the A. And also such others as may be recovered while she is there. Approximately twelve hundred words listing dead and wounded has been omitted. Flags were at half-mast yesterday on the Masonic Temple and most of the engine-houses, and on a number of private buildings in Sacramento. The entire medical fraternity were in attendance on the sufferers, as well as the clergy of all denominations. The opinion is now that the total dead will exceed ninety, if not one hundred. Too much praise cannot be awarded the members of the Howard Association, who almost to a man were engaged in behalf of the sufferers after the arrival of the antelope. A large number of ladies were in constant attendance also at the Vernon House, doing all that they could do to alleviate pain. The collections in Sacramento have been quite liberal. The regular semi-monthly earthquake arrived at ten minutes to ten o'clock yesterday morning, thirty-six hours ahead of time. It is supposed it was sent earlier to shake up the Democratic State Convention, but if this was the case the calculation was awkwardly made, for it fell short by about two hours. The convention did not meet until noon. Either the earthquake or the convention, or both combined, made the atmosphere mighty dense and sulfurous all day. If it was the Democrats alone, they do not smell good, and it certainly cannot be healthy to have them around. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 8, 1864. Beautiful work. The ladies should examine some of those rare specimens of embroidery on exhibition at the Mechanics Fair. Among the finest is a tapestry picture of a royal party in a barge, names unbeknownst to us, by W. S. Canaan of Healdsburg, a large portrait of G. Washington by Mrs. Chapman Yates of San Jose, and a cat and a pile of kittens by Mrs. Juliana Bayer. We do not like the expression of the old cat's countenance, but the kittens are faultless, especially the blind brown one on the right, so perfectly true to nature are those young cats that it is easy to see that every schoolboy who comes along is seized with an earnest desire to drown them. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 8, 1864. Captain Kidd's Statement. Captain Kidd of the ill-fated steamer Washu has been accused, according to telegraphic reports from Sacramento, of ungenerous and unfeeling conduct in remaining with the wreck of his boat after the explosion instead of accompanying the maimed and dying sufferers by the catastrophe to Sacramento. In defense of himself, he says he was satisfied that the wounded would be as well and kindly cared for on the antelope as if he were present himself, and that he thought the most humane course for him to pursue would be to stay behind, with some of his men, and search among the ruins of his boat for helpless victims, and rescue them before they became submerged by the gradually sinking vessel. He believed some of the scalded and frantic victims had wandered into the woods, and he wished to find them also. He says that his course was prompted by no selfish or heartless motive, but he acted as his conscience told him was for the best. We heartily believe it, and we should be sorry to believe less of any man with a human soul in his body. His search resulted in the finding of five corpses after the antelope left, and these he sent up on the small steamer which visited the wreck on the following day. However, he need not distress himself about the strictures of a few thoughtless men, for that class of people would have blamed him just as cordially no matter what course he had pursued. Whether one or more flues collapsed, or whether one or more boilers exploded, or whether the cause of the accident was that too much steam was being carried, or that the iron was defective, or the workmanship bad, are all questions which must remain unsolved until the washoo is raised. At present, and so far as anything that is actually known about the matter goes, one of these conjectures is just as plausible as another. Captain Kidd thinks the cause lay in the inefficient workmanship of the boiler-makers. The surviving engineer says he looked at the steam gauge scarcely two minutes before the explosion, and it indicated a hundred and fourteen pounds to the square inch. She was allowed to carry a hundred and forty. He tried the steam cocks at the same time and found two of them full of water. The boat carried a hundred and twenty to a hundred and twenty-five pounds of steam from San Francisco to Benicia, and from here to where the accident occurred it was customary to carry less as the water grew solar, because as every boatman knows a steamer cannot make as good time or steer as well in shoal water with a full head of steam as she can with less. From Rio Vista to Freeport it was customary to carry about a hundred and ten, and above Freeport about seventy pounds of steam. The Chrysopolis was far ahead and had not been seen for more than half an hour, and since the last collision Captain Kidd had given orders that the washoo should be kept behind the line boats and out of danger. He was making no effort to gain upon the Chrysopolis and had no expectation of seeing her again below Sacramento. Gas and Lombard of Sacramento contracted to build boilers for the washoo which would stand a pressure of two hundred and twenty-five pounds and secure the inspector's permission to carry a hundred and fifty. Captain Kidd appointed Mr. Foster, one of the best engineers on the coast, to stay at the boiler works and personally superintend the work. The workmanship was bad. The boilers leaked in streams around the flues, and the inspector would only allow a certificate for a hundred and thirteen pounds of steam. The boat made seven trips, but the leaks did not close up, as was expected. Gas and Lombard then contracted with boiler makers here to take out the flues and make the boilers over again so that they would stand a hundred and forty pounds. Captain Kidd relinquished ten pounds from the original contract. It was done, at a cost of seven thousand dollars, about what a new set would have cost, and after a cold water test of two hundred and ten pounds the inspector cheerfully gave permission to carry a hundred and forty. With a margin like this the boilers could hardly have exploded under a pressure of a hundred and fourteen pounds unless the workmanship was in some sort defective, or the severe test applied by the inspector had overstrained the boilers, or unless perhaps a rivet or so might have been started on some previous trip under a heavier head of steam, and this source of weakness had increased in magnitude until it finally culminated in a general let go under a smaller head of steam. The sinking of the boat is attributed to the breaking off of the feed pipes which supply the boilers with water, and which extend through the bottom of the boat, and as the wreck settled and careened a larger volume of water poured in through the open ash ports forward of the fire doors. The boat sank very gradually, and had not settled entirely until nearly three hours had elapsed. But as we said in the first place, the real cause of this dreadful calamity cannot be ascertained until the wreck is raised and the machinery exposed to view. Tapton Kidd leaves today with the necessary apparatus for raising his boat, and Mr. Owens, who built her, will accompany him and superintend the work. It will be several months, however, before the Washu will be in a condition to resume her trips. Captain Kidd says he would raise the boat anyhow to satisfy himself as to the cause of the accident, even if he never meant to run her again. Captain Kidd feels the late calamity as deeply as anyone could, and as anyone not utterly heartless must. That his impulses are kind and generous, all will acknowledge who remember that he kept his boat running night and day in time of the flood, and brought to this city hundreds of sufferers by that misfortune, without one cent of charge for passage, beds, or food. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call September 8, 1864 Democratic State Convention C. L. Weller, Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, called the Convention to order yesterday noon at Turnverane Hall. He observed in the opening speech that it was the most important Democratic Convention which had met since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in as much as upon it would devolve to decide whether our liberties were to be preserved or destroyed. Berea Brown was chosen Temporary Chairman and Temporary Secretaries, and a Sergeant at Arms were also appointed. A Committee on Credentials was appointed, consisting of one delegate from each county. A Committee on Permanent Organization was chosen in the same manner, the Convention then adjourned until 3 p.m. Afternoon Session As soon as the Convention met, the work of forming the Committee on Credentials and Permanent Organization was begun, when the discovery was shortly made that Charles L. Weller and Berea Brown held proxies for the San Diego and Shasta delegations respectively. This riled cough-roth of Sacramento, and expelled from his system a two-hour speech, which had probably been festering there all day, on account of the evident disposition of the San Francisco delegation to rule the roost. He gave it to them hot and strong, and accused them of gobbling up everything else they could get their hands on. He was bitter on the San Francisco boys. Weller replied that he did not conceive himself guilty of any very heinous crime, in being the recipient of a proxy, and reminded the Convention, in a general way, that he had always been a good and consistent Democrat, and had suffered martyrdom for the cause. Coughroth hid him back, said he was ready to bring flowers and lay them at the feet of any who had actually suffered martyrdom, and then, ungenerously insinuated that he didn't see it. He couldn't recognize a martyr in a man whose misfortunes were all aces in a deal for a congressional nomination, perhaps. So the afternoon was wasted in wrangling, and actual work cannot begin in the Convention until to-day. Downey, Weller, and McEwen are the most prominent aspirants for the nomination in this district, and coughroth in the Middle District, as we are informed by a chaste and reliable copperhead. The permanent officers of the Convention are as follows. Chairman, J. W. Mandeville of Tuolumne, Secretaries John D. Goodwin of Plumas, T. L. Thompson of Sonoma, and Barkley Henley of San Francisco. A Committee on Resolutions consisting of five members was appointed. They are to report today. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 9, 1864. Mrs. Hall's smelting furnace. We would call the attention of all persons interested in mines and mining machinery to several bars of copper and galina, which are exposed to view on a table in front of the hot air engine in the Mechanics Fair. The bar, modestly marked Galina, contains more silver than anything else, and was smelted from ordinary ore in Mrs. Hall's famous smelting furnace by her daughter. The time occupied by the young lady in the production of this bar was only twenty minutes, and the materials used were a bushel of ore and a bushel of charcoal. By this process every particle of metal can be extracted from ore and saved in less time and at smaller expense than the same ore could be roasted preparatory to crushing in a quartz mill. Copper ore can be reduced with the same facility and at the same slight expense. The furnace is a combination of principles long known to the votaries of science, but the condenser attached to it is an entirely new invention, and the credit of originating it belongs to Mrs. Hall alone. It is a large drum, which sits upon the flue of the furnace, and into which all the smoke passes. A shower bath from above thoroughly washes this smoke, and the metallic particles, which would otherwise float away upon the atmosphere, are thus arrested and precipitated to the bottom of the drum. By this means all the metal in the ore is saved, which is an achievement not hitherto compassed by any of our reduction machinery. Mrs. Hall's invention has been patented, and in a letter from the Department at Washington she was assured that there was no piece of mechanism gotten up for similar purposes in the patent office, which could at all compete with this invention of hers. Let all who have the mining interest of California at heart bestow upon Mrs. Hall's smelting apparatus the attention its importance deserves. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call September 9, 1864 Charitable Contributions Messers Barry and Patton collected over a hundred dollars yesterday at their saloon in Montgomery Street for the sufferers by the explosion on the steamer Washoo. It will be forwarded to the officers of the Howard Association at Sacramento. An earnest and extended movement in this direction would produce enough money in a single day to secure to those poor flayed and mangled creatures every comfort and attention they may stand in need of, and it is proper that Sacramento should be liberally assisted in her humane work of ministering to their wants. Who will set the ball in motion? We have seen twenty thousand dollars collected in a short time in the noble little city of Memphis, Tennessee for a similar purpose years ago. If money is wanted by the unfortunate's now suffering at Sacramento, San Francisco will respond promptly and with a will. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call September 9, 1864 Cross Swearing That a thing cannot be all black and all white at the same time is as self-evident as that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and when a man makes a statement under the solemn sanction of an oath the implication is that what he otters is a fact, the verity of which is not to be questioned. Notwithstanding witnesses are so often warned of the nature of an oath and the consequences of perjury, yet it is a daily occurrence in the police court for men and women to mount the witness stand and swear to statements diametrically opposite. Swearing positively, leaving mere impressions out of the question, on the one hand that the horse was as black as night, and on the other that he was white as the driven snow. Two men have a fight, and a prosecution for assault and battery ensues. Each party comes up prepared to prove respectively and positively the guilt and innocence of the party accused. A swears point blank that B chased him a square and knocked him down, and exhibits wounds and blood to corroborate his statements. B brings a witness or two who saw the whole affair, from probably a distant stand point, and he testifies that nothing connected with the fight could have escaped his observation, and that it was A who chased B a square and knocked him down, and between these two solemn statements the court has to decide. How can he do it? It is an impossibility and thus many a culprit escapes punishment. There was a case in Point Tuesday morning. A German named Rosenbaum prosecuted another German named Levy for running into his wagon and breaking an axle-tree. He swore that he kept as far over to the right-hand side of the street as a hole in the planking would permit. Stopped his wagon when he saw the impending collision, and warned Levy off. Notwithstanding, Levy drove his vehicle against his wheel, breaking the axle, so as to require a new one, which would cost twenty-five dollars. He stated also that Levy had been trying to injure him in that way for a long while. Levy brought a witness who swore that between Rosenbaum's wagon and the hole in the street there was room for a wagon or two to pass, that Rosenbaum challenged the collision and that it was unavoidable on the part of Levy. That instead of stopping his wagon the prosecuting witness drove ahead at a trot until the wagons became entangled, and that no damage whatever was done to Rosenbaum. On the whole that instead of Levy running into Rosenbaum's wagon, Rosenbaum intentionally brought about the collision for the purpose of recovering damages off of Levy. The case was stronger than we have stated it, and the judge could do nothing but dismiss the matter. That there was perjury on one side was apparent. Yet this is but the history of one half the cases that are adjudicated in the police court. There should be examples made of some of these reckless swearers, it would probably have a wholesome effect. The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 9th, 1864. Democratic Ratification Meeting. Several hundred men and boys of all political colors were gathered at the Plaza last evening to see the skyrockets, look at the pictures, and hear the music and speeches. It was expected, of course, that all the apostles and prophets, saints and martyrs of the peacemakers and the Constitution preservers would display themselves, no matter how diverse in their different shades of democratic conservatism, as the exponents of the party that is now wanting its determination to wreak a terrible retribution on the members and supporters of the present administration under the leadership of George B. McClellan. While the speakers were concentrating their thoughts for the grand effort before them, the lights were suddenly extinguished and darkness became visible. The accident was ominous. Soon, however, all was ablaze again and the work of the evening begun. Colonel Hain was chosen to preside over the meeting. A very moderate and carefully guarded inaugural embodied his appreciation of the honour thus conferred on him and his views in regard to the conduct and results of the forthcoming campaign. He had always been a Democrat and a thorough union man, opposed to dismemberment under any circumstances whatever. He defined the policy of the Democratic Party and expressed his belief that the salvation of the country lay through the Democratic Party. Colonel H was disposed to be charitable towards his opponents, and on the whole showed that parental solicitude and the good example of Republican politicians have not been entirely lost on him. After the Chairman had closed his remarks, the honourable H.P. Barber of Tuolumne was presented to the meeting. He spoke of the humiliation of the Party during the while past, but congratulated himself and his audience that the genius of civil liberty had rolled away the stone from the tomb and the Democratic Party had come forth. He abhorred the man whose argument is vituperation and epithets in a political discussion. He challenged an impeachment of his unionism or his patriotism. Deprecated this fratricidal war, arraigned the administration for nullification and negro equality, pointed to a Democratic administration as the only hope for the restoration of the unity of the nation and the government. Declared his confidence in the issue of the campaign and exhorted the Party to unity of action, asking no quarter but to fight under the motto of victory or death, he considered himself better than a negro any day. Mr. Doyle, one of the electors for the State at large, delivered a short address. His effort was rather feeble, characterised by moderation entirely unnatural to Democratic speakers. The whole substance of his speech was that after trying Mr. Lincoln's administration for three and a half years the nation was satisfied that to continue it would only be to sink the country inextricably in ruin. A man is needed at the head of affairs who combines the elements of civilian and soldier, who knows exactly the right thing to do and the right time to do it in. McClellan is the man. The mind of the speaker lit for a moment on the Monroe Doctrine, and finally eliminated through his organs of speech and feeble tones the expression of a desire to vote for a competent man. Mr. William T. Coleman responded to a call in a speech made up of a little glorification, followed by the usual expressions of confidence in the result of the Party, vindicating his own loyalty, and pointing to McClellan as the man who is to restore our primal fraternity. Mr. C. said he was not a psychophantic peace man, a clamourer for peace on any terms whatever. He wanted to see a pacification between the States as speedily as possible, but one based only upon honourable terms. After Mr. Coleman closed, a Mr. Hamilton was introduced, and was the first speaker of the evening to cross the bounds of moderation. Before he exhibited his positive sympathy for the South, he had begun to think that the discreet caution or sober temper of the declaimers would afford but such slight grounds for criticism, beyond their usual allegations, and their reflections upon the war policy of the Administration. We have not space to give even an epitomised report of any of the speeches, but suffice it to say that Hamilton, with the growing vehemence of his nervous temperament, declaimed immoderately against the Administration, asked the people if they were prepared to respond to its bloody mandates, declared that, but for the fact that they saw relief in an approaching election day, the opponents of the Administration would have resisted with blood, and that those who attempted to carry out its measures would long air this have been in their graves. The speaker grew more virulent as he progressed, and sounds of dissatisfaction were heard from different persons on the stand. His speech was not well received. Hamilton has certainly mistaken his party. He can't vote for McClellan. He'd better go and get a situation in Jefferson Davis's Cabinet. His speech was the regular old stereotyped radical copperhead tirade, not even accepting the attack on ministers of the Gospel. In appropriate order followed next C. L. Weller. His first remark was a fling at General McDowell, referring to Bull Run. He is troubled with alcatraz on the brain. He inflicted upon his hearers that exaggerated woe of his morbid imagination, which he glories in parading on every possible occasion, and with which he ardently hopes to create a current of sympathy and devotion, which will carry him irresistibly to high political preferment. We left Mr. Weller alternating between General McDowell and the Chicago nominee. His chief idea in approving the nomination of General McClellan seemed to be that he could now rant, vituperate, and administer such counsel as he saw fit, and yet vindicate his loyalty by drawing on General McClellan's well-known patriotism and constancy to the Union. During one stage of the meeting two speakers divided the attention of the crowd. W. D. Sawyer, S. Squire, had been called upon by some who were too remote to hear the speakers on the stand, and he addressed them from the west side of the plaza.