H 



IALIKOKNIA. 



The question of regulating the rate* of rail- 

 road transportation ha* be. n clouded by un- 

 aecvMary difficulty. Railroads aro |>ul>lie 

 highways in private ownership. In this. 

 su-dctioa they invoke the highest attribato ot 

 the State's sovereignty the right of taking 

 private property for public use. Their ..n- 

 n are common carrier* with special privi- 

 Ugee. Tb maximum rate* in California U-n 

 oenu pir inilo fur passengers, and fifteen cents 

 per ton for freight were fixed at a time when 

 price* and profile were *o much higher than 

 now, it *eem* to belong to a different age. 



< of the moat serious charge* against the 

 railroad companic* waa, that, after the grant to 

 them in 18*8, at a mere nominal price, of a 

 large tract of submerged and tide lands north- 

 weet of and adjacent to Yerba Bucna Island, 

 on certain condition* of improvement, they 

 had not only neglected to make these im 

 prorementa, in their eagernea* to get posses- 

 sion of Goat Island, although they were aware 

 that the causeways and other structures which 

 they proposed to erect there would ruin the 

 harbor of San Francisco, bnt they had the 

 effrontry to demand that the State or the city 

 bould pay them $2,600,000, as a condition of 

 their improving this tract. Governor Booth 

 advise* that the $12,000 paid by the company 

 should be refunded to them and the tract re- 

 claimed. The final decision in regard to Goat 

 Island had not been reached, but there was 

 very little prospect of its falling into the hands 

 of the railroad companies. 



The Supreme Court of the State decided 

 that a tax on a solvent debt, secured by a 

 mortgage, waa a double taxation, and there- 

 fore unconstitutional. The majority of the 

 court Kerned also inclined to regard a tux 

 upon land, and upon a mortgage given upon 

 the land to secure a debt, aa a double taxation. 

 The tatiagt-bantt of California have, in 

 their few year* of existence, attained to a 

 magnitude of business which indicates a high- 

 er degree of thrift among the working-classes 

 then than we have been in the habit of at- 

 tributing to them. In the *pr!ng of 1873 there 

 were twenty of these banks, only five of 

 which had been la existence more than five 

 /Mrs, and only half the number more than 

 three year* ; the number of depositors was 64,- 

 001 ; the amount of deposits, $61.431.826 ; tlio 

 amount of loan* and Investments,!.* 

 the cross earning*. $2.784,104 ; and the amount 

 Of dividends for six month*, $2,288,804. 



Dwing the spring of 1873 there was a mas- 

 aaere by the Modoc Indian* in the Klamath 

 district of Northern California, of several offl- 

 . cers and ciliiens of the United Statea, followed 

 by a war of extermination of the greater part 

 of that tribe (** MODOC WAB). This disaster 

 led to considerable criticism on the sy*t. 

 Indian reservations as to exists on the Pacific 

 slop*, and to some attempt* to improve it. 

 The fact came oat in the controversy on the 

 abject that the Klamath Indiana, a pcace- 



t ANBY, EDWARD R. S. 



able, quiet tribe, more industrious and less in- 

 t. inperato than moat of the tribes on the Pa- 

 , mi'loyed for many years on 

 the ranches of the large farmers as hardncn. 

 laborers, and as domestic servants, and had 

 a good reputation among the limners. In tin 

 e\il hour some of the more ignorant, vicious, 

 and lazy whites in that region begun to de- 

 mand that they should be sent to the rescrva- 

 The best citizens opposed it, but this 

 worthless class finally took the law into their 

 own hands, and drove them to Round Valley, 

 with great cruelty and abuse. Even this might 

 not have produced a revolt, though the poor 

 Klamath Indians were greatly demoralized by 

 the treatment they had suffered, but the same 

 ruffians undertook to drive the Modoc?, a 

 plucky, fighting tribe, to the same reservation, 

 and met with a resistance they little expected. 



The reclamations of liirge tracts of what are 

 called the tule-lands, swampy districts, in the 

 delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 KiMrs, some of them islands, and others tracts 

 of the main-land, but all covered by the tvle, 

 a rush or reed which attains a height of ten 

 leet, but dies down to the ground each antumn, 

 has been going forward for several years, but 

 is now so thoroughly systematized, that in 

 1878 about 600 miles of levee were complete d. 

 These lands, comprising about 660,000 acres, 

 were granted to the State by Congress, and by 

 the State were virtually given to purchasers on 

 condition of their reclamation. The process 

 is a very simple one, though costing from six 

 to ten dollars per acre. A levee is first con- 

 structed to a height of ten or twelve feit. 

 taken from the land itself, and a ditch is made 

 tin the inside of the levee. The inclosed land 

 is usually below the level of the river at high 

 tide ; and when inclosed it is at first burned 

 over to destroy all the dead tule stalks, and to 

 some extent the peat-like roots of the tulf, 

 and then sown with wheat on the ashes, which 

 is trampled in by sheep. Sometimes alfalfa 

 is also sown for an after-crop. When this crop 

 has been harvested, the land is ploughed, the 

 horses being shod with broad wooden shoes to 

 enable them to keep np in the light, ashen 

 surface. After two or three ploughings, and 

 the taking off the same number of crops, the 

 land is considered thoroughly reclaimed, and 

 yields large crops. It is easily irrigated, and 

 forms the best wheat end barley lands in the 

 State. Alfalfa, red clover, root-crops, uml 

 fruits, also do well on this rich soil. Die land 

 when reclaimed sells for about twenty-five 

 dollars per acre. Most of the work of recla- 

 mation i* performed bv Chinese laborers. 



CANHY. Hrigadier and Brevet Major-Gen- 

 eral EI>WAIM> KKMAKD SPRIGG, U.S. A., a gal- 

 lant and eminent general of the Army, born 

 in Kentucky, in IHl'.i ; murdered by the Modoc 

 Indians at the I,ava Beds in Northern Califor- 

 nia. April 11, 187M. Hin parents removed t 

 Indiana in his boyhood, and. after receivings 

 liberal education there, he entered the Military 



