birthday.  His name was George Washington Sherwood.  He was elected to the Constitutional Convention of California, and wrote its first Constitution, copied after that of his native State, New York.  The Northern element prevailed in that convention, and California came in a free State by its unanimous vote.  Broderick headed the Northern sentiment; Gwin, who had been a United States Marshal in Mississippi, the Southern.  I met him often.  He would come into a bar-room and say:  “I did not come here to dig gold, but to represent you in the United States Senate.”  He would then say:  “Come up all, and take a drink.”  I thought that was a strange way to inspire the people with the idea that he was the proper person to represent them in the United States Senate.  He was elected, with Colonel Freemont, the first two United States Senators from California.  At the next election for United States Senators, Broderick got absolute control, and although Gwin had fought him bitterly, they were the two senators to be elected again.  Broderick had the magnanimity to induce his friends to go for Gwin and had him elected with him, and Gwin showed his ingratitude by going at once to Washington and securing from Buchanan the control of all the appointments of the government in the State of California.  So when Broderick came there, there were none to give his friends.  Gwin was afterward very prominent in the rebellion.  He went out in a boat in Charleston harbor, crying out from it his advice to Major Anderson, advising him to surrender at the time of the attack on Fort Sumter. (This is a matter of history that occurred after the time of which I am writing.)

A BULL FIGHT.

There were bills posted about the city that three of the most celebrated fighters of Mexico would have an exhibition in the evening, and combat with animals.  As my friend and myself never had seen one we thought we would go.  It was an amphitheatre, with circular seats about the pit, with thick planks around it, the seats commencing about twenty feet from the bottom of the pit.  There was a door at the side of the pit, which was raised by pulleys, which admitted the bull.  They were wild ones.  Our seat was about the fifth row back.  The house was crowded and brilliantly illuminated.  Then the bull-fighters were in the pit, one on horseback, two on foot, gorgeously and brilliantly dressed, with swords, the blades pointed like spears, with red flags in their hands to attract the bull.  The door was raised and the animal came rushing in; he was a terrible one to look at.  Blinded by the lights and the scene, he rushed and roared around the arena; I trembled in my seat, although I was in no possible danger.  The first feat of the bull-fighters was to plant a rosette on the shoulders of the animal with a barb implanted in his flesh, which enraged him more, with colored ribbons, two or three feet in length, attached to the rosette, which