yne's permission, give a little joke on that gentleman at
the time. The Mechanics' Institute gave an entertainment for, I
think, the benefit of the library, and prizes were offered for the
two best conundrums. The best was at the expense of Mr. Payne's name,
and was "Easy Shaving by Pain" (Payne). I don't think Mr. Payne took
the money. Then Norris & Wylly, notaries public and estate
agents,--Mr. Wylly is still a resident of the city; Messrs. Lush and
Zinkie, milliners; Shakespeare, photographer; Gentile, photographer
(over the theatre), then Theatre Royal.

The north-west corner of Government and Bastion Streets was the brick
building built by Mayor Harris as a residence, and afterwards turned
into the Bank of British Columbia. Next the bank was the _Daily
Standard_ building, built and owned by Mr. De Cosmos; then T. L.
Fawcett & Co., upholsterers; then T. C. Nuttall, Phoenix insurance;
William Heathorn, bootmaker; next comes the post-office, a single
story frame structure with a wooden awning in front, as were all
stores in those times. Mr. Wootton was postmaster. One of the few
brick buildings on Government Street comes next, built for and
occupied by William Burlington Smith, and containing a public hall
upstairs. It was in this hall that the British Columbia Pioneer
Society was organized on the evening of April 28th, 1871, the writer
being secretary of the meeting. Since died. William P. Sayward, who
resides in San Francisco, and myself are the only two remaining of
those pioneers who met in Smith's Hall that night and formed the
first society of British Columbia Pioneers. Next we have the Adelphi
saloon, on the site of the Government offices of 1860. This is as far
as the photo shows, and so I must close.

CHAPTER VII.

THE VICTORIA GAZETTE, 1858.

Through the kindness of a "fifty-eighter" I am enabled to give my
readers, especially the old-timers, some extracts from this, the
pioneer newspaper of Victoria, if not of British Columbia. To me,
although only a "fifty-niner," and at the time a juvenile, these
extracts are very interesting, for I remember nearly all the
personages mentioned, and it is the incidents that these names are
connected with that I mention. The editors announce in this, the
first number, that they at first intended to name their paper The
_Anglo-American_, but on second thought changed it to the
_Victoria Gazette_, as more appropriate. The editors and
proprietors were Williston &