hours were occupied in the drawing, which took place
under the superintendence of a committee of eight
persons. The first prize, a diamond watch valued at
two thousand dollars, was drawn by one Moses.
Duncan's Chinese salesrooms, thrown open the 5th of April, 1853, made a finer display of Oriental mer- chandise and curiosities than any similar establishment in Europe or America before or since. Spacious rooms, tastefully fitted up, were crowded with costly Asiatic goods, presenting the appearance more of a magnificent museum than a shop. The wealth and splendor of the Indies were spread out in tempting array for the benefit or ruin of purchasers — shawls from Thibet and Cashmere, silks embroidered by pa- tient Hindoos, Chinese robes, ornaments in wood and ivory, work-boxes of Bombay, scented sandal-wood, grotesque carriages from Japan, porcelain ware, and paintings.
Beside the elaborately wrought silk and crape shawls, which were very popular at first, but which soon went out of fashion, the Chinese shops in San Francisco offered many curious articles. Carved ivory, representing animals, cities, pagodas, junks; puzzles, fans, chess and checker-men in wood and ivory ; sandal-wood, roots twisted into peculiar shapes ; gorgeous but flimsy silks, satins, and velvets; inlaid lacquered ware and china, silver filigree work, pictures, and a thousand other things, displaying the aesthetic shades in the minds of those half-civilized heathen.
Business at the beginning of 1854 was pronounced dull ; everybody was complaining. The miners lacked water, the country traders money, and so the ware- houses of the city must groan with goods and their owners with ennui.
It would, indeed, have been very strange had not some become discouraged. One man landed in San Francisco in January, 1851, with $150,000 worth of goods. The first fire after his arrival destroyed half of them, the next swept away the rem
