PRESIDENT HOLDEN,
in Inaugural Address of University of California, 1886.

DECEMBER 4.

And now my story is told, the story of my work, and the story of my life.  Looking back over all the long stretch of years that I have carried this heavy burden, though I should not care to assume it again, yet I am not sorry to have borne it.  Of the various motives which urge men to the writing of books, perhaps the most worthy, worthier by far than the love of fame, is the belief that the author has something to say which will commend itsself to his fellow-man, which perchance his fellow-man may be the better for hearing.  If I have fulfilled in some measure even the first of these conditions, then has my labor not been in vain.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in Literary Industries.

DECEMBER 5.

LAW IN THE EARLY MINING-CAMPS.

Here, in a new land, under new conditions, subjected to tremendous pressure and strain, but successfully resisting them, were associated bodies of freemen bound together for a time by common interests, ruled by equal laws, and owning allegiance to no higher authority than their own sense of right and wrong.  They held meetings, chose officers, decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift punishment to offenders, and managed their local affairs with entire success; and the growth of their committees was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days and weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which, in more staid communities, would have required months or even years.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in Mining Camps.

DECEMBER 6.

New towns were laid out in the valleys to supply the camps, and those already established grew with astonishing rapidity.  Stockton, for instance, increased in three months from a solitary ranch-house to a canvas city of one thousand inhabitants.  Sacramento also became a canvas city, whose dust-clouds whirled, and men, mules, and oxen toiled; where boxes, barrels, bales innumerable, were piled in the open air, no shelter being needed for months.  For the City Hotel, Sacramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as rent, although it was only a small frame building.  The Parker House, San Francisco, cost thirty thousand dollars to build, and rented for fifteen thousand dollars per month.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in Mining Camps.

DECEMBER 7.

The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization and prosperity. * * * It is for the sight of a yellow streak in his pan that he has been tempted to endure the fatigue, cold, and hunger of the mountains, and the heat, thirst and horror of the desert.

The prospector is a man of small pretensions, of peaceful disposition, indomitable will, boundless perseverance, remarkable endurance, undoubted courage, irrepressible hopefulness, and unlimited hospitality He is the friend of every man till he has evidence that the man is his enemy, and he is the most respected man in the mining regions of the West.