574 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



provements, and erected and embellished homes in the vicinity of their 

 mines. Thriving towns sprung up; schools flourished; the church bell 

 called to prayer, and all the concomitants of civilization attended as hand- 

 maidens upon an honored and intelligent industry. To the miner there 

 appeared no reason in the clamor suddenly raised against his operations, 

 and there seemed a deep injustice in the gradually tightening orders of the 

 Courts, which operated like a harsh brake on every wheel of his industry. 

 The great dams and long lines of ditches, stretching to the fastnesses of the 

 Sierras, dug and flumed along rugged hillsides at vast expense, extending 

 from town to town, suddenly became useless. The toilsomely excavated 

 tunnels, penetrating the bowels of the earth, once resonous with the sound of 

 rushing water, became mute. The thriving little villages put on an air of des- 

 olation. Schools were closed up. The Sabbath gatherings no longer assem- 

 bled at the sound of the church bell, for the worshipers must leave or 

 starve. The scale of taxable property, as shown by the Assessor's books, 

 descended by the million yearly. A friend who called on me the other 

 evening at San Francisco, told me that he and his wife had accumulated 

 in a town in this county, by years of saving, some ten thousand dollars, 

 which was all invested in town property; that the day before the Circuit 

 Court decision he could have sold it for that price, and the day after he 

 could not have sold it, and could not sell it now for $100. He has moved 

 with his family to another county. These facts, which are too familiar to 

 you, cannot be, and are not realized elsewhere. If they were, it seems to 

 me there would sometimes be a regret expressed at the necessity for the 

 cessation of an industry which has nourished an important part of the State, 

 and less tendency to confound the occupation of a miner with that of a road 

 agent. By the collective mining industry one or two million dollars in gold 

 in a month was for a great many years poured into the trade channels of 

 the State, San Francisco being the principal gainer. If miners have been 

 engaged for years in a nefarious business, certainly those who have reaped 

 the principal benefit ought to be chary of reproaches. 



A foundry in Marysville is the chief manufactory of hydraulic monitors 

 in the State. While you feel the reproaches heaped upon mining and 

 miners, so suddenly changed from the praised and petted industries of the 

 State into law-defying, unconscionable destroyers of its prosperity, you may 

 perhaps patiently examine the causes of complaint of those of your adver- 

 saries who speak from a point of personal interest. The complaints of the 

 men whose farms are covered with tailings are worthy of considerate treat- 

 ment. If the remedy they have pursued has destroyed mining, they have 

 apparently not been actuated by a wish to destroy it from malicious motives, 

 but to save themselves. If they have thereby destroyed their own markets 

 in the mountains, it is their loss as well as yours. I have often heard a 

 regret expressed by the miners that their operations injured those of the 

 valleys on the margins of the streams, and it must be conceded that any 

 damage caused by mining was involuntary, and not malicious. It was a 

 misfortune growing out of the nature of things. But the miners argue as 

 follows: "We have been for a great many years engaged in this business 

 with the approval of the Government and all the people of the State. We 

 have made enormous investments in our enterprises which will be a total 

 loss if it is stopped. We are the best customers of the communities below, 

 including those complaining, because we produce only gold, and are gen- 

 eral consumers. We have bought our lands in good faith to mine. The 

 agriculturists have taken up lands since ours were taken upon the spots, 

 where, by prescriptions, we had a right to flow our tailings. We are 



