Some months ago, it will be remembered, says the Sacramento Bee, considerable outcry was made because J.L. Polhemus, (a druggist in its city) stamped with his store-mark all pieces of foreign coin that came into his hands.

Since then the coin has greatly depreciated, and it is said that a cunning financier in Sacramento, is, and has been, engaged for some time in collecting all francs and forty-cent pieces containing the Polhemus stamp, intending to make him redeem them at the rate they were current at when he put his endorsement upon them;

I am curious about the "great depreciat(ion)" mentioned in the article. Could this be a reference to the Mint Act of 1857, which caused foreign coins to cease to be Legal Tender in the United States?