ated at the Occidental Hotel, San Francisco, December
1st 1869.

_To the President and Board of Directors of the Mercantile
Library Association of San Francisco_:

GENTLEMEN: The present embarrassment of your Society having come
to my knowledge, and wishing in some suitable manner to show my
gratitude to the people of this city for the kindness and
appreciation I have met with during my visit, I have thought of
no better method to do so than in offering you the benefit of a
grand musical entertainment such as I originally intended giving
here, with the sincere hope that it may prove a help towards
relieving the Mercantile Library of its present difficulties.

Should my offer be accepted, I will, gentlemen, consecrate all
my time during the two months necessary for its preparation, to
make it a grand success. I am gentlemen, Yours obediently

CAMILLA URSO.

This generous offer was at once accepted and without delay the officers
of the Association, the city government, and in fact, the whole
community united with her to make the proposed festival one of the great
musical events of the Pacific Slope. Boston had given its musical
festival, why not San Francisco? There, it had been comparatively easy.
Here, it was an undertaking almost too vast and difficult for
comprehension. There was not a choral society in the State. If there
were a few choirs of male voices they had never sung together and though
there were many individual singers and performers in different parts of
the State they had never been brought together. A hall must be prepared,
the orchestra drilled, the music for the chorus selected and printed,
and the whole festival lasting three days be planned, laid out, and
carried into effect.

Never before has a single woman been so made a queen over an army of
men, women and children. The moment the event was announced the
Occidental Hotel was besieged by editors, musicians, officials,
contractors, carpenters, decorators, chorus masters and a hundred others
who thought they might be of use in some way. Madam Urso held high state
in her rooms and heard each one in turn, gave him her commands, and bid
him move on to his appointed work. The Mechanics' Pavilion, a huge
wooden structure erected for the Mechanics' Institute Fair in 1868, was
still standing. Orders to take it down had been given, but at her
request t