450 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



nation's history, and evinces the highest proof of our capacity for self-govern- 

 ment that out of these venturesome and restless spirits there came wisdom 

 to frame a Constitution and enact a body of laws so sound in principle and 

 progressive in spirit as to become substantially the foundation upon which 

 the permanent prosperity of the State was to rest. These men gave us a 

 Practice Act that has expanded, with a little departure in purpose and 

 scope, into the Codes of to-day; they made a departure from the common 

 law, under which most of them must have been reared, as to the domestic 

 relations and rights of property, and gave us the wiser and better civil law 

 which makes of the woman and the wJfe an owner by something more than 

 dower or for life. Upon the Supreme Bench was placed lawyers of the time 

 who enriched our literature by the wisdom and beauty of diction of their 

 opinions and decisions. 



A rugged justice pervaded the mining camps, and gold dust was safer 

 then in an unguarded shanty than stovewood now in our back yards. In 

 all the struggles of those early days lawlessness and crime had but tem- 

 porary victories. The Vigilance Committee itself, while in a certain sense 

 a lawless body, was in fact a protest against lawlessness and crime. The 

 ruling forces of society were for law and order, and a code of honor, chiv- 

 alric and manly, seemed to have set itself up in the hearts of the people. 

 The men who have survived that wonderful period are many of them 

 among us yet, and I always feel like lifting my hat in veneration when I 

 meet one of them. The annals of American history in connection with 

 the birth and the growth of no other State will record a like number of 

 men comparable to those found in and out of the Society of California 

 Pioneers. They came for gold and got it. From 1849 to 1857 there was 

 deposited in the United States Mint $385,255,454. The shipments by 

 steamers amounted to $376,191,632. In 1857 it was estimated that one 

 hundred thousand miners had already returned to their homes, and many 

 took back their gold without reporting. It was thought, and by high 

 authority it was estimated, that $600,000,000 had to that time been mined 

 in the State. 



Gold was found in nearly all the streams emptying into the great valley 

 region, and gold seekers were necessarily made acquainted with the valley 

 portions of the State. 



The quick eye of the American was not slow to discover something here 

 besides gold; the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the rapid 

 exhaustion of the richer placers that lay along the mountain streams, 

 gradually unfolded the agricultural resources of the State, which have 

 since been the marvel of the world. Indeed, so rapidly did the people 

 enter into this new field, when once they began to think of making homes 

 here, that in 1856 there were five hundred and seventy-eight thousand nine 

 hundred and sixty-two acres in cultivation, and of wheat there was grown 

 in that year nearly four million bushels; of barley, four million six hun- 

 dred thousand bushels; of oats, one million two hundred and fifty thou- 

 sand bushels, and a large quantity of butter and cheese was made, and a 

 large number of fruit trees were planted. 



The returns show that in 1856 there were of the domestic animals six 

 hundred and eighty-four thousand cattle, one hundred and ten thousand 

 horses, thirty thousand mules and asses, two hundred and fifty-three thou- 

 sand sheep, and one hundred and eighty-six thousand swine. 



The halo that had surrounded the brow of the gold seeker was van- 

 ishing. A new and more permanent industry was springing into life. 

 California began to show elements of permanent strength and growth. 

 Manufactories were being established, and people were gathering around 



