Some Reminiscences of old Victoria

We finally had two card boxes given us, and packed the fruit in one and the orange blossoms in the other. We were then invited in to rest and found the ladies were representative of those we met afterwards – the most kindly and courteous – and here I must say that I never met more obliging people than these same good people of California. I never met with a rebuff from anyone, and I am sure I bothered them enough during our stay with enquiries of every kind and another.

The police are instructed to supply everyone with necessary information and are provided with books containing such information as people may require. There are many excursions out of Los Angeles in various directions, of which we availed ourselves. One of these took us to Causton’s ostrich farm, San Gabriel Mission, and Long Beach. The ostrich farm is well worth a visit, to see these monster birds running about with wings outstretched. We were informed that at the age of six months they were full grown, and considering their size and weight it is a wonder. They eat as much as a cow, and, to show how high they can reach, the keeper stood on something and raised his hand up to eight feet and the ostrich easily took an orange from his hand and swallowed it whole. We were warned not to come too close to them, for the ostrich is attracted by bright hatpins in the ladies’ hats or by jewelry, or by anything bright – all are swallowed whole. One was sitting on a batch of eggs, which had just been vacated by the male, who does the most of the sitting. The visit to the San Gabriel Mission was of great interest to me, for it was of ancient origin, having been one of those founded by Padre Junipero Serra in 1771. The church we visited, and were conducted through by a lay priest who, in a monotonous tone of voice, recited all he knew of the mission. As before stated, the mission was about one hundred and forty years old, and one cannot but admire the zeal and devotion of the men who endured the hardships of the life they must have led so long ago. The church windows were very high from the ground, as the natives were not to be trusted, and the fathers might be surprised at any moment during the service and shot at. They had often to take refuge there from further attacks in early times. We were told that the building, which was built, as all were at that time, of sun-dried bricks and mud, was renewed since only in roof and seats. The original doors were preserved and shown us in a room. They were made very substantially, with iron bolts and bands and big locks, but now crumbling with age. The pictures of saints on the walls were painted in oil, and very poor specimens of art, I should say. They were old, and were sent from Spain. Although twenty-five cents was asked for admission we were asked to contribute to a fund for the restoration of the building, and many small coins were given by our party, and, when it is remembered that these excursions are daily, the year around, it must be an expensive job keeping the old building in repair. It looked as if twenty dollars would have covered the cost of any repairs made in a year, and it looked to me a case of graft on someone’s part. There is another church, founded at the same time, in Los Angeles, and I produce all I could decipher of an ancient inscription I copied from the front: "Los – de Esta Parroquia A La Reina de Los Angelus" (built 1814). These missions are planted at stated distances from San Diego to San Francisco, and all by that pioneer of Roman Catholicism, Junipera Serra. There is a statue to him in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in the attitude of exhortation, leaning forward with arms extended upward. I visited three of the missions, and they are all about the same. There is great food for contemplation in visiting these relics of the past. To think of the conditions as existing then and now.

We were photographed in front of the mission, after which we left for Long Beach and spent the balance of the afternoon. The beach was covered with bathers – men, women and children – and although the surf rolled high on the sands the bathers ran in and met the rollers, which completely buried them. They then emerged laughing, and waited for the next wave. There was quite a small town on the sands where there were shows of all kinds and booths for getting money by many ways in profusion.

At the handsome and commodious Hotel Virginia we visited Mr. Roper of "Cherry Creek" who has been down here all the winter, and we found him getting better, but slowly.

Although there are many Victorians go south to spend the winter each year, the great majority are for many reasons unable to do so, and I thought it might be of some interest to these latter to give them "items by the way" in going and coming on this most enjoyable sojourn to the land of fruit, flowers and beautiful homes.

At all these winter resorts for people from the East and North are flowers, trees and fruit, with handsome hotels, fruits, beautiful shade trees, and last but not least, beautiful homes. There are public parks in all of them where in January people may sit out of doors among their flowers, with the mocking-birds singing on all sides. Residences are nearly all in the bungalow style, with projecting roofs. The more imposing residences may be of Spanish architecture with red tiled roofs which look very handsome.

I wondered at the large and handsome hotels in Pasadena, although Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego all have good hotels. In Pasadena there was the Maryland with its pergola, a Spanish appendage covered with climbing flower vines which was very attractive; also the Green and the Raymond. There is little to be seen of the original inhabitants of this country, that is to say, of their descendants. It put me in mind of our own Indians, of the remnant of the Songhees tribe. They are all seemingly half or quarter breeds, and work as laborers for the railway company. I have already given in my boyhood experiences in San Francisco an account of a flag incident, and strange to say, I nearly had another in Los Angeles. One day I saw what might be an English flag flying from a high building, and the sight stirred me. So to make sure I threaded my way through the crowd for some distance and when opposite the building I walked off the sidewalk and craned my neck to look up six stories to make sure if it were really a Union Jack. Well, well! I thought, is it up so high to protect it from molestation, or is it that they are more liberal-minded here? I felt pleased, but when I espied what turned out to be the British coat-of-arms below the flag I saw the reason why. Just then along came a motor cycle and a motor car, and in the opposite direction a street car, and I recovered myself and got out of the way in quick time. It was the office of the British Consul, and that is why it waved. I consoled myself with the thought that it was after all only a certain class of American who would not tolerate any other flag in this country but his own, and I shall try and always think this.

We left Los Angeles and Redlands March 24th for San Francisco, where we arrived March 25th. In San Francisco I met an old Victorian, Tom Burnes, brother of William Burnes, H. M. customs. I had not seen him for years, and we started to explore the Plaza on Kearney and Washington Streets. This was the most familiar part of San Francisco to me, as I have passed through this part often as a boy. It is now known as Portman Square. I looked for the "Monumental" engine house from which I had run to fires in the early fifties. A blank space was pointed out where it had been, but the fire had destroyed this ancient landmark. In the Plaza Mr. Burnes showed me a monument to Robert Louis Stevenson, the English writer of such interesting sea stories. On the top was a ship of the time of Elizabeth, with the high poop deck, which must have represented something in one of his stories, and an inscription:

"To Remember Robert L. Stevenson.

"To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little, to spend a little less. To make upon the whole a family happier for his presence. To renounce when that be necessary. Not to be embittered. To keep a few friends, but those without capitulation. Above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself. Here is a task for all that man has of fortitude and delicacy."

This was erected by some admirers of the very interesting English writer who died, was it not in Samoa, so beloved by the natives.

Piloted by Mr. Burnes, we next viewed St. Mary’s Cathedral. It had been fifty odd years since I had last been inside, and as a boy I had often been attracted by the music. The cathedral was completely gutted by the fire, which entered at the front doors and passed up the tower and to the roof, in fact making a complete ruin of the building. So that the original landmark should be preserved intact, they built a complete church inside of concrete and bolted the two walls together so that the building is as good as ever. New stained glass windows, altars and a new $25,000 organ have been donated by wealthy members of the congregation, so that we looked upon a new church inside and the original outside.

We spent the afternoon at Golden Gate Park, which was the great sight of San Francisco, four miles long, laid out as an immense garden or succession of gardens, with conservatories and aviaries, tropical trees, winding roads and paths in all directions. The first thing to attract my attention before entering the museum was a statue of Padre Junipero Serra, the intrepid founder of so many missions along the coast of California. There were also monuments to Abraham Lincoln, General Grant, and that stirring preacher of the south, Starr King. Time was valuable, so I had to give up a further inspection of the park to give all remaining time to the museum, which closed at four o’clock. All the time we were in the museum I noticed two policemen patrolling about and I thought it unusual, and on inquiry found that lately a most valuable picture had been taken by being cut out of the frame. After some trouble the thief had been captured and the picture recovered. The thief gave as a reason for stealing it that he thought it might inspire him to paint just such a picture, he being ambitious to be a painter. I hardly think this excuse will weigh with the authorities. In the room of pioneer relics I found many interesting things. First a large bell which recorded on the outside the founding of the volunteer fire department, organized 1850, George Hosseproso, chief engineer. Firemen of those days were men of account, in fact, many men of prominence were officers or members of the fire department. Second, four mission bells from an old mission church at Carmelo, Monterey County, built by Padre Junipero Serra, 1770; San Francisco’s first printing press, used in publishing the first newspaper in California, in 1846, at Monterey; a picture of Jno. Truebody, a pioneer business man of San Francisco, whom I remember well; two glass cases of relics presented by John Bardwell, of the vigilante days, containing firearms, batons, certificates of membership in the vigilante committee, pieces of rope, being cut off the original ropes with which they hanged Cora, Casey, Hetherington and Brace, for the assassination of James King of William, and General Richardson. James King of William was the editor of the Chronicle, and in an election campaign James King, who was opposed to Casey in politics, mentioned the fact that Casey had been a jail-bird in his youth. This was taken up by Casey’s friends and three of them agreed that the first one of the three who should meet James King should shoot him. Casey being the first to meet him performed the deed. For this he was hanged by the vigilance committee, who demanded him from the authorities. This committee was formed immediately after the assassination.

Cora was hanged for the murder of General Richardson because of a slight cast on Cora’s wife by the former. Pistols seemed to have been carried by all as a necessity. Cora and Casey were taken out of the jail by the vigilance committee and hanged May 18th, 1856. There were also pieces of the rope used in hanging Hetherington and Brace for the murder of Baldwin, Randall, West and Marion, July 29th, 1856. There were pictures also of Judge Terry, A. B. Paul, Wm. T. Coleman, Charles Doane, James King of William, and a picture of the scene of his assassination. I recognized this locality immediately I saw it. It was the offices of the Pacific Express Co., on the corner of Washington and Montgomery. There were also pictures of Fort Gunnybags, the headquarters of the vigilance committee, showing the alarm bell and the sentries on the roof; also Lola Montez, Countess of Bavaria, a most notable woman of those exciting times, and of William C. Ralston. There was a picture of the pavilion of the first Mechanics’ Exhibition, held in San Francisco in 1857. I remember this exhibition well, as on a certain day all the school children were given free admission, and it was as a school boy I went.

There was an extensive collection of relics of the past in the Egyptian rooms, many being facsimiles of the originals in the British Museum. Where this was the case it was so stated, but there were many genuine things, amongst which I noted a wooden statue dating back about 1,000 years before Christ, being the wife, and also sister of Osiris, and mother of Horus, chief deity of Egypt. Strictly on the stroke of four o’clock a policeman went through the building and called out that the buildings must be closed. I made a request to one of these policemen to see the curator, and he took me to his office; he was, unfortunately, not in, but I saw his assistant and offered her some relics of early San Francisco, which were accepted. I was watching the people filing out, prior to closing, when out came three bluejackets, whose caps showed they belonged to H. M. S. Shearwater. I introduced myself, and remarked, "What are you boys doing here? I should hardly have expected to have seen sailors so far from their ship." "Oh, sir, we are at anchor in the harbor yonder, and will be leaving Monday for Esquimalt." I saw her that evening at anchor, with the Union Jack flapping in the breeze, and suppose the Jacks were aboard all right.

We were advised that the mint was open to visitors between the hours of 9.30 and 11.30, and as I had not been there for about twenty years we joined a party one morning. On presenting ourselves we were ushered into a waiting-room with others. Later on a man in uniform came for us. We were counted and told to follow. We were first taken down to a room in the cellar where we were instructed as to what we should see, and given a lot of information about the mint. This was done where it was quiet, as where the work was done it is very noisy. The first process was melting the silver in crucibles, which were emptied of their contents when in a liquid state into molds, which were in turn emptied out, were grasped by a man who passed them on with thick leather-gloved hands to powerful rollers which rolled the ingots out to long strips like hoop-iron, after being passed through many times. These strips, which were then as thick as a dollar, were passed under a stamp, which punched out the coins about 120 a minute. They were continually being examined by various men who now and then threw out imperfect ones. They were then passed on to another room where there was a perfect din of machinery. They were now passed under an immense stamp and the image was punched on under a pressure of one hundred and twenty-eight tons. They were then coins, and after several other examinations were cooled and passed, one being handed around for our inspection. In addition to the dollar we saw the same routine gone through in making a copper cent piece. I tried to get one, but he said every one was counted and must be produced. There were several who wanted souvenirs and wished to pay for them. We were counted again, signed our names and left.