day evening when I, forgetting the number of verses of a hymn to
be sung, stopped playing, and the congregation commenced another
verse. Seeing that I had made an error I began again two notes
behind. This made confusion worse confounded, as may be supposed, but
having commenced I continued to the end of the verse. This being the
closing hymn, "Lord, Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing," I was not long in
making my exit from the church, as I did not wish to meet Mr. Cridge
or any of the church officers, being only a youth and anticipating
censure, but I forget if I got it. About this time a committee of
ladies of the church, among whom were Mrs. A. T. Bushby, mother of
Mrs. W. P. Bullen, and Mrs. Good, her sister, both daughters of the
Governor, Mrs. Senator Macdonald, and Mrs. Cridge collected a large
sum of money and sent to England for a fine pipe organ which I
suppose is the one in use to-day. The first organist of this organ
was a Mr. Whittaker, and of the choir, as near as I can remember
them, were the Misses Harriet and Annie Thorne, Mrs. T. Sidney
Wilson, Mrs. Macdonald and her two sisters the Misses Reid, Dr. J. C.
Davie, Alex. Davie, his brother, Mr. Willoughby, Robert Jenkinson,
Albert F. Hicks, John Bagnall, my brother Rowland and myself. Mr.
Walter Chambers, as a youth, was organ blower also about this time.
The first sexton and verger was William Raby, and the next John
Spelde, who had charge of the Quadra Street Cemetery, digging the
graves and collecting the fees for the same.

I have spun this article out beyond what I intended, but I must be
excused as I don't know when I have said enough on pioneer days.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHRISTMAS IN PIONEER DAYS.

"... When I remember all the friends so linked together
... Fond memory brings the light of other days around me."

I have been requested to give my recollection of a Victoria Christmas
in the good old days, as to how it was spent and conditions
generally. In the first place, in speaking of "the good old days" of
the sixties, I would not convey the impression that they were
literally so good, for they were, so far as I can remember, some of
the hardest that Victoria has seen.

There is a something in recollections of the past that have been
pleasant that is indescribable. It is easier felt than described, and
I have no doubt is felt by many old-timers in this city to-day. Ask
them to describe these feelings and they would be nonplussed. "Mark
T