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are, in fact, threatened with unavoidable destruction. That is to say, an area inclosing from twelve to fourteen hundred square miles of fertile territory is indirectly damaged, and is menaced with ultimate destruction.

Nor is this the whole of the situation, for the injury done to the Sacramento Valley extends, by a reflex action, to the low lands of the San Joaquin, and to the lands about the upper bays by a direct movement. It may, therefore, be said without exaggeration that the indirect damage actually embraces an area extending from Oroville and Chico to Benicia on the Strait of Carquinez.

It is necessary to bear in mind that the destruction of the navigability of the Sacramento River is involved. This would deprive the whole of Northern California of competition in transportation. The wheat-crop alone of that region may be estimated at five hundred thousand tons. It may also be fairly calculated that the removal of competition would result in a rise of freight-rates to the extent of $2 per ton. Thus, then, an additional tax of $1,000,000 a year on the movement of the harvest alone is involved in this question, as concerns Northern California. An illustrative instance of the influence of river improvements on freight-rates is to be found in the effect produced by deepening the channel at the mouth of the Mississippi. The competition offered by that river after the opening of its mouth reduced the aggregate freight charges on the first year's products of the Mississippi Valley $50,000,000. Taking the counties of Colusa, Placer, Sacramento, Solano, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba, Butte, and Tehama, and estimating the assessed value of the real estate other than town lots, and the improvements, and of the town lots and their improvements, and making what seems a sufficient deduction from the aggregate, it is estimated that the property in these counties threatened with partial or complete destruction can not properly be put at a lower amount than $60,000,000.

The evidence furnished by the State and consulting engineers shows that the water-ways are in danger of destruction, and that, unless sustained and systematic treatment is applied to the rivers, they will shortly cease to be navigable, and that both the Feather and Sacramento Rivers are in a condition in which an unusual flood might cause them to abandon their present channels, and spread themselves abroad through the low lands between Knight's Landing or Grey's Bend and Suisun Bay, ruining the country everywhere, and changing the very face of the State.

Apart from the burden that would fall upon the northern region of the State by the removal of the means of competition by the rivers, this injury would affect a population of at least one hundred and fifty thousand, of whom one third would be directly and two thirds indirectly concerned. The effect upon the value of land can not be ignored. It is evident that

if through any cause the cost of transportation is raised two dollars a ton, the products of the region so affected must by this change be put at an increased disadvantage equal to the removal of their lands from a market a distance represented by the enhanced ratio of transportation. Their lands are in fact thereby put as much farther from the market as two dollars will carry a ton of wheat, and the consequence must be to lower the value of land exposed to such an impost.

An approximate estimate of the loss of values to be apprehended in this direction from the destruction of the principal water-ways can not be fairly stated at less than $100,000,000.

This leads to a statement of the value and importance of hydraulic mining, which is the cause of the present and prospective damage to the State. This mining has been carried on for twenty-five years, and the present annual output of the hydraulic mines is estimated at from $12,000,000 to $14,000,000. It is therefore apparent that an estimate of $150,000,000 for the whole period of their working is not extravagant. It is equally clear that while no accurate estimate of their future output can be made, it is safe to assume that it will be larger than it has been in the past, since the extent of gravel-bearing claims remaining unworked is practically unlimited, and since many very extensive workings have either just been opened or are not yet opened so as to be largely productive. Enough is known to make it plain that the hydraulic mines have contributed greatly to the prosperity of the State, and will contribute still more largely in the future, if suffered to proceed. A very considerable population is supported by these mines, estimated at 30,000, and the indirect support is very much more extensive. The counties in which the principal hydraulic mines are situated may be said to depend almost entirely upon the mining industry. All values in those counties are therefore dependent upon the prosperity of this interest. What this involves may be perceived by reference to the comprehensive decline of values in Virginia City consequent upon the depreciation of the mines on the Comstock lode. In that case the mining population was thinned out, the value of real property fell to panic prices, and the general effect upon the prosperity of the community was as disastrous as thongh every man in the city had been directly interested in the mines. Similar results must always follow where the intimacy of the relations between the various interests is as great as in the mining counties of California. The suppression of hydraulic mining, therefore, would in all probability be productive of a general collapse throughout this region. Not only would there ensue a positive and direct loss to the State in the cessation of auriferous production, but the entire industries, commercial activities, and general civilization of the mining counties would be virtually destroyed, and the tax-paying as well as the wealth-producing

capacities of those counties would be paralyzed. It is, however, evident that the hydraulic mining interest is an important one. It may be said, as regards its annual output, to represent a fixed capital of $100,000,000, and directly and indirectly it affords support to a considerable population. Even the farmers in the valley, who occupy lands on the verge of the mineral area, owe a portion of their prosperity to these mines, which create a brisk demand for their produce, and a demand the loss of which would be severely felt.

The engineers were required to ascertain the extent of the injury, present and prospective, and whether remedial measures were available. Their reports have shown that the extent and gravity of the damage and menace are far greater than had been commonly supposed; that it was possible to counteract the ill effects of hydraulic mining by a systematic treatment of the rivers; that such a systematic treatment of the rivers was necessary in any case, since it would be impossible to meet the exigencies of the situation by merely stopping hydraulic mining.

The most formidable danger to the low lands is due to the deposit in the mountain-streams and tributaries of enormous quantities of heavy sand, which is being washed down lower every year. The deposit of this sand must continue until the entire Sacramento Valley is covered and destroyed, even though hydraulic mining should be stopped at once, until remedial measures are adopted. In fact, it may be asserted that the stoppage of hydraulic mining in the present stage of the débris evil would produce no alleviation whatever. There is a mass of mining débris now collected in the cañons of the mountains sufficient to cover the Sacramento Valley completely a couple of feet deep, and this matter will continue to be washed down every winter until the beds of the river are entirely choked, and until the destruction inflicted upon the valley agricultural lands has become past relief or reparation.

The surveys of the engineers resulted in ascertaining the practicability of remedial measures, but at the same time showed that the subject was too extensive to be dealt with locally. It was particularly insisted on by the engineers that sustained and systematic treatment of the rivers must be undertaken, or that it would be useless to attempt anything. While, therefore, they held out the encouraging consideration that by such a systematic treatment the condition of the rivers might be made even better than it had ever been, they contended that nothing less comprehensive than the methods they proposed would be adequate. It was estimated by the engineers that the expenditure required for the construction of suitable works could not exceed $10,000,000, and that it might not exceed $5,000,000. What was known as the drainage bill was prepared and passed at the previous session of the Legislature. This act levied a benefit assessment upon the

districts to be aided; the hydraulic miners were called upon for extra contributions, and a tax of five cents on the hundred dollars was made general throughout the State.

A large portion of the session of the Legislature was occupied in the discussion of the bill to repeal the act, which, however, was defeated on the first reading in the Assembly.

The plans of the engineers embrace a system of levees and cut-offs for the lower course of the Sacramento, and a system of dams for the upper course. It has never been pretended that the dams without the levees, or the levees without the dams, would bring about the results aimed at. But the works have only been commenced a short time, and the dams alone have been constructed. No engineer has claimed that the dams were capable by themselves of effecting a cure for the evil attacked. On the contrary, all the engineers have agreed that before any real relief can be had, the levees must be made strong enough to carry the flood-waters of the river without giving way. During the past winter no real test of the engineering plans was possible, inasmuch as they were incomplete. Such a test can not be applied until the lower river has been leveed scientifically-and this is not the work of a few months. The brush dams, however, have been so successful in holding back the heavier débris, that the efficiency of that kind of work can not be questioned seriously. The inundation of the Sacramento Valley does not show that the engineers made any mistake, for no steps had been taken to prevent such an inundation.

The floods found no obstacles but the old and thin and insufficient levees which had been built piecemeal here and there, and as a matter of course they soon overcame those frail barriers.

The report of the Board of Equalization presented the first trustworthy data for ascertaining the results of the revenue system put in operation by the new Constitution. Its framers believed that a great deal of property had escaped taxation in the past, and they were determined to make everybody pay in the future. They imagined that this could be done by decreeing it, and so resolute and unflinching were they in the prosecution of their purpose that they refused to exempt from taxation even the shadows of property, but insisted that everything which represented property should be assessed. It happened coincidently that there prevailed a belief that land monopoly could be put an end to by taxation, and to this end it was agreed that cultivated and uncultivated land, of the same character and quality, should be assessed at the same rate when in contiguity. The taxation of mortgages, the taxation of credits and stocks, the taxation of uncultivated land at the same rate as cultivated, was to lighten the burden of taxation on the masses by forcing the rich to bear their just share of the general load. How the new system succeeded, the State

Board of Equalization tells. For it has been shown in the report that the ways in which taxation is escaped are more numerous than ever before; that while personal property has always evaded assessment, real property has now found it possible to follow the same course; that the attempts to impose double taxation have in a large number of cases been eluded by resort to shifts which resulted in the loss of even single taxation; that the endeavor to break up land monopoly, by taxing uncultivated lands at the same rate as cultivated, has operated as a raid upon the small farmers; that owing to the exemption of growing crops from taxation, and the failure to provide for the assessment of the mature crops, this important class of personal property largely escapes taxation; that owing to the ambiguities and confusions of the new Constitution, the Board of Equalization has been prevented from equalizing assessments generally; that under the new system the State is at the mercy, first of the assessors, secondly of the tax-payers; that whether the assessments are made by the first or the second, the interests of the State appear to be equally subordinated; and it is apparent that some three or four hundred millions of property continue to pay no taxes whatever.

The board wants some provision which will render the assessors intelligent or conscientious. That they are not so at present the board thinks itself bound to conclude from the manner in which real estate has been assessed. With a unanimity and a perversity seldom equaled and never surpassed, the assessors have reversed the new constitutional rule in regard to cultivated and uncultivated land, and have in practice evidently assessed the former by the latter. But the most remarkable result of all is the graduation of the assessments in accordance with the increase in size of the farms. Everywhere the small farm has been assessed higher than the large one. In every county the value per acre of ten, twenty, and fifty-acre farms has been rated higher than that of the hundred, two-hundred, four-hundred, and six-hundred-and-forty-acre farms. The fact remains that the new rule has thus far failed, and it is to be ascertained whether the principle underlying it, or the method of appointing assessors, is most at fault. In regard to the latter, it must be admitted that thus far the plan of electing these officers has not resulted well for the State. It is notorious that property of all kinds escapes assessment.

A bill to authorize a commission to act on the subject of the adulteration of food and medicines was introduced in the House and referred to the Committee on Epidemics and Diseases. Their report presented an alarming state of affairs, of which the following statement contains some details:

The extent to which poisonous adulteration appears to be carried on in the United States is such that it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that

VOL. XXI.-6 A

murder had become one of the commonest incidents of trade and manufacture. Nothing can be more horrible than the cold indifference to consequences with which manufacturers of all kinds appear to employ deadly and noxious materials. We are forced to conclude that there are in this country thousands upon thousands of men who are perfectly willing to spread death and disease broadcast over the community if in dling, cheating, substituting bad and sham for good and so doing they can make a little larger profit. Swingenuine materials, are methods so usual as to be almost the rule. Adulterations enter into almost everything that is eaten, that is drunk, that is worn, that is used. And disease and death go hand in hand with adulteration everywhere.

Our children are poisoned by the dye-stuffs used upon their dresses and their stockings. The candy they eat is poisoned. The papers which we put on our walls are poisoned. The cards which we use in visiting or for social purposes are poisoned. The artificial flowers our wives and daughters employ are poisoned. The bread we eat is poisoned. The bakingpowders, of which some two hundred kinds are on which we put upon our tables are deadly. Our coffee, the market, are nearly all poisonous. The pickles our tea, our sugar, our butter and cheese, all our canned goods are poisoned. Our candles, our oils, the cosmetics our women use so freely, are full of danger. The toys, the puzzles, the block maps, which we put with them. And as for the medicines with which disin the hands of our children, may carry destruction ease is to be warded off, there is scarcely a genuine drug to be had anywhere.

The attention of the Legislature was so engrossed with the drainage act that little time remained for the consideration of many other important measures; consequently a final adjournment took place on March 4th, under the provisions of the Constitution. No appropriation bill was passed, nor an apportionment bill. The latter was required to conform to the returns of the recent census. So much important business remained to be considered, that the Governor, on March 24th, called an extra session of the Legislature, and appointed April 4th as the day on which it should commence. The objects of this session were:

1. To enact a general appropriation bill, which shall contain no item or items of appropriation other than such as are required to pay the salaries of the the institutions under the exclusive control and manState officers, the expenses of the government, and of agement of the State, for the thirty-third and thirtyfourth fiscal years.

cretion of the Legislature, to provide that the State Board of Equalization shall fix such an ad valorem rate of taxation upon each one hundred dollars of taxable property of the State, which, after allowing the per cent required by law to be allowed for delinquencies in and cost of collection of taxes, shall be sufficient upon and directed to be raised by the Legislature for to raise the specific amount of revenue determined the thirty-third and thirty-fourth fiscal years.

2. To levy the rates of taxation, or, in the dis

3. To appropriate money to pay the deficiencies in appropriations for the support of the civil government of this State for the thirty-first and thirty-second fiscal years.

4. To divide the State into senatorial, assembly, and congressional districts.

5. To enact a general road law.

6. To send appointments to the Senate for their confirmation.

The extra session commenced on April 4th. In the Senate, the first business was the adop

tion of a resolution to proceed to the election of officers for the session, by a vote of 19 to 14. The House assembled at the same time, and the Speaker chosen at the previous session took the chair. A point of order was raised, that the House was not organized. The Chair held the House to be regularly organized by its officers all being in place as elected at the opening of the regular session. A motion was made to notify the Senate of the organization of the House. A substitute was offered to this motion, that the House proceed to organize by electing certain officers. On a point of order raised, the Chair ruled the motion by way of substitute out of order. The House, if not organized, can not entertain the motion under the prevailing organization. If the House had desired to organize over, it could have done so at twelve o'clock, and, if it should have done so then, the Speaker is a usurper. However, by consent, debate would be heard on the resolution. The following proceedings then took place:

Mr. Kellogg argued that the officers do not hold over; that an extra session, so far as officers are concerned, is a new Legislature, as they are elected not for a legislative term, but for the session.

Mr. May held that the officers hold over, and thought there could be no doubt of it. This is the twenty-fourth, not the twenty-fifth Legislature. There is no precedent that the officers lose place by adjournment sine die, except at the end of the term. The Senate re-elected this year, but it was a new Senate, although composed of the same men as in the twenty-third Senate.

Mr. Freer held to the same views, and said the adjournment sine die was adjournment without day, but that did not cut off the terms when a day is given for reassembling. He read from Cushing's" Elements " in support, and additional sections, showing that the clerks hold (until removed by resolution) for the entire term for which the Legislature is elected. He opposed reorganization because it would cause delay and be revolutionary in character.

Mr. Griffiths favored reorganization. He cited the journal of the House of Louisiana, March, 1878, then convened in extra session, where the officials were retained by resolution regularly passed. Also journal of the Iowa House, January, 1862, in extra session, where, by resolution, the old officers, so far as deemed necessary, were reappointed. Also journal of the Senate of Illinois, 1867, in extra session, when by resolution certain officers were chosen. Also journal of the House of Indiana, 1872, extra session, when the House entered into a new election. He said if any doubt was left as to the matter, it might involve the laws passed, and so a reorganization had better be had. There might also be officers who can be dispensed with. Mr. Young had at first thought adjournment sine die dissolved the organization, but on examining the law he had come to the settled conviction that he had Adjournment is a term somewhat confused in some minds; adjournment is not prorogation, not dissolution. The members-elect constitute the Legislature, even when not in session, and hence the power given in the Constitution to call the Legislature together after adjournment, thus recognizing the existence of the body, though not in session. He cited Cushing's "Law and Practice," section 196, in support.

been in error.

The motion by way of a substitute was lost, yeas 17, nays 47; and the original motion to notify the Senate of the organization of the House was adopted, yeas 36, nays 28.

This extra session continued until May 14th. The bill for the apportionment of the State into election districts failed to pass. Many efforts were made to legislate on subjects not embraced in the proclamation of the Governor calling the session. The time of the Legislature was thus unnecessarily occupied, and some important measures failed to pass.

The report of the Railroad Commissioners was a clear statement of the difficulties encountered by them, and of the conclusions forced upon them by the study of the transportation question. They discovered, before they had been at work long, that it was impossible to regulate freights and fares in an arbitrary and sweeping way without producing far greater evils than any beretofore alleged to exist. They found also that to regulate transportation charges on any other principles than those which were already in operation, would necessitate an entire reorganization of the whole business, and would demand a knowledge and a capacity such as that business has never developed yet in any country, notwithstanding its employment of the most acute intelligences. There were but two methods of procedure open to them. They might pander to the unreasoning demand for a sweeping reduction of charges, with the certainty that in so doing they must injure the public quite as much as the railroads; or they might follow out the principles already established, and endeavor, through them, to reach results which would benefit the public without injuring the corporations. They have chosen the second of these

courses.

They point out, in vindication of their decision, that no commission appointed for similar purposes has ever yet been able to arrive at any other general conclusion; that every attempt to deal violently with the problem, and to adjust it by sheer force, has failed disastrously; that every such failure has involved serious injury to the public interests; and that the unavoidable deduction from all existing experience in this direction is, that equitable and reasonable methods are the only ones which can produce beneficial results. The commissioners dwell upon the importance of understanding the principle of the maximum in transportation. They quote the maxim that high maximum means low minimum; they show that this is the secret of successful transportation; that, in fact, it is only possible to provide for the carriage of low-priced staples at minimum rates by fixing the rates on highclass merchandise correspondingly high.

the Legislature on Prisons is more of a generThe report of the Assembly Committee of al survey of the most important conclusions reached by experiment in all parts of the country, than a presentation of the features of the system in California. It shows that the question of the disposition and treatment of convicts is undergoing more and more radical changes, and that the old views and ways are

being discarded wherever the existing institutions render it practicable to introduce reforms in prison management. It is now recognized by all who have examined the subject that every prison ought to be at least as much a reformatory as a place of confinement; that the reformation of criminals can only be undertaken hopefully by such methods as give the convicts definite desirable objects, which they may attain by their unassisted efforts; that rewards and punishments are the necessary groundwork of any such system; that it must be applied by men specially fitted for the work, and who ought to have undergone a distinct training in penology. It is also beginning to be believed that when the sentence of the prisoner is indeterminate—that is, left to be decided by his own conduct-the prospect of reformation is much greater than under the old method, since the prisoner is thus afforded hope without restriction. The Crofton Prison system, and those which have grown out of it, all tend more and more toward reliance upon the prisoner himself, and this is evidently the scientific mode of procedure. For, if a man who has fallen into evil courses is to be reclaimed, it is clear that he must determine to help himself, and that, no matter what assistance he derives from without, all the really useful action must come from within.

relative to the general management of penal institutions. It was subsequently followed by a prison-reform convention, at which important papers were read and questions discussed. The Drainage Act of the Legislature, for the repeal of which a protracted and unsuccessful effort was made at the last session, was finally declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. The principal grounds of objection to the act were that it provided for other purposes than those which are specified in the title, and that it established double taxation, and delegated unconstitutional powers to local boards. This decision was final.

The progress of the State has been of the most substantial character. Banks of issue being prohibited by her Constitution from the beginning, and even when the national currency was adopted and made legal tender by Federal law, the feeling against paper money of any kind was strong enough to maintain the gold standard all through the war, and through the era of inflation which followed it. California, consequently, did not feel the seeming prosperity attendant upon the great rise in nominal values which took place in the East as the currency depreciated, and she also escaped the inevitable reaction which came with the appreciation of the currency and the fall of prices. Yet the State did not escape the effects of the failure of some of the most productive mines and a consequent shrinkage of values. This was strikingly manifested in stock values, the highest prices of which were reached in January, 1875, and is shown by the following table:

Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran-
cisco board, January, 1875..
Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran-
cisco board, July, 1881...
Shrinkage..

Highest value consolidated Virginia, January,
1875....

It has been found that by appealing to men's self-respect, and by treating them as though they were by no means irreclaimable, the latent ambition, the slumbering conscience, the paralyzed manhood, can be stimulated and given new life, and that the reformations wrought by these means are practically the only ones which are permanent. It is important to observe that economy goes hand-in-hand with humanity. Not only is it right to attempt the reform of the criminal, but it is to the interest of the public Treasury to do so. Crime is waste, in all its forms, and our old systems of dealing Value consolidated Virginia, July, 1881. with it have been as wasteful as itself. fact, we have only continued to give crime a fixed abiding-place and a central rallying-point, and there can be no doubt that our jails and State prisons have made ten times more scoundrels than they ever cured. To alter all this in accordance with the new lights is not only to rid the community of its most dangerous elements, but to prevent the revival of these elements, and at the same time to make crime largely self-sustaining in the prisons."

"In

By the new Constitution of the State the management of the State prisons is vested in a board of directors. Five persons were appointed by the Governor in 1880. Subsequently charges of a serious character were made by the public press reflecting upon the board of directors and the warden of St. Quentin's Prison; whereupon these officers requested the Governor to appoint a commission to examine into the general management of the prisons. This commission made a report in August, which contained some important statements

Shrinkage..

Highest value California, January, 1875..
Value of California, July, 1881..

Shrinkage..

Highest value Sierra Nevada, September, 1878..
Value of Sierra Nevada, July, 1881..

Shrinkage...........

$282,805,404

17,902,700 $264,402,704

75,600,000

945,000

$74,655,000

84,240,000

851,000

$83,889,000

27,000,000

825,000

$26,175,000

It should be remembered that the famous Comstock mine did not reach its maximum until 1877, that in twenty years it yielded three hundred million dollars, and that it dropped nearly thirty-three millions in three years.

The tendency of gold-mining to assume a stable character is shown by the annual steadiness of the crop. The great improvements which have taken place in mining machinery and methods now enable the working with profit of low-grade ores, of which there are regular and enormous deposits. How mining of this kind is developing is shown by the fact that the foundries of San Francisco during the year have turned out machinery for over a thousand stamps. The injunctions which have

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