The Silver State

WESTERN DISPATCHES
[SPECIAL TO THE SILVER STATE.]
FROM CALIFORNIA.
San Francisco, September 9.

The Ralston memorial meeting was held at Union Hall last night at eight o'clock. Long before the hour a vast crowd besieged the doors of the hall, and three stands for outside meetings were erected near the corner of Fourth and Howard streets in front of the hall, and at the corner of Third and Howard streets. At half-past seven o'clock the doors of the hall were thrown open and the crowd admitted, but the hall did not hold one-third of the vast assemblage. All the seats on the floor had been removed to give more room, and in ten minutes the spacious hall was packed, and the people standing were packed tightly together. The gallery was stocked to the utmost fullness, many ladies being present, many of them standing the whole of the evening. Not less than 5,000 people were in the hall, and the audience was perfectly orderly, indeed; the order was almost oppressive in its solemnity.

The people were of the best class, and a more thoroughly respectable audience was never seen in San Francisco. The bar, the church, industry and labor, all professions and legitimate classes were represented by their best men. The stage was adorned at either end by a life-sized portrait of Ralston, draped in crape. On the stage sat Vice-Presidents and fully one hundred other citizens from among the most prominent and respectable classes. On motion of Peter Taylor, of Weaver, Taylor & Co., Gen. Geo. W. Smiley was unanimously elected President. At his coming forward every head was uncovered, the gas was turned on, and the scene from the stage was one seldom equaled, and a perfect sea of faces was presented to view and packed so closely that not a body could be seen.