CALIFOKNIA. 



come. She was admitted to the bar, and the 

 local paper says that " the committee appointed 

 to examine her consisted of some of our first 

 lawyers, who subjected her to a thorough test 

 of her legal knowledge, and who unanimously 

 certified to her entire fitness for advancement." 

 A concurrent resolution passed the Assem- 

 bly providing for a joint committee of nine to 

 consider the subject of a Constitutional Con- 

 vention, voted for by a majority of 723 votes 

 at the last election. Early in January the 

 Committee reported a bill to provide for hold- 

 ing a Convention to revise and change the Con- 



TO8EMITE FALL. 



stitntion of the State. It proposed to hold the 

 Convention at Sacramento in May, and that it 

 should be composed of 120 members. The mea- 

 sure was extensively discussed in each House, 

 and various amendments were made in one and 

 rejected in the other. The act as passed pro- 

 vided for the election of delegates in June and 

 the assembling of the Convention on Septem- 

 ber 28th. Thirty of the members were to be 

 chosen on a general ticket, of whom each voter 

 was to .vote for twenty. 



A bill was also passed to provide for a State 

 Labor Bureau. It consists of commissioners 

 whose duty it is to keep a list of all persons, 

 companies, or corporations making applications 



for working men and women, the number of 

 each required, the wages offered, the work to 

 be done, and where ; ascertain the facilities for 

 the performance thereof, the sanitary condition 

 of the locality where such labor is to be done, 

 the provisions for the comfort of the workmen, 

 and the probable term of employment. The 

 Bureau must also keep a record of all appli- 

 cations for employment or information, with 

 the name of each applicant, sex, age, nativity, 

 trade, or calling, whether married or single, 

 number in family (if any), and amount of wages 

 asked. In all cases where practicable, situa- 

 tions should be filled in the order of 

 their application, and without partial- 

 ity. The Bureau shall, when ordered 

 by the Commissioners, establish branch 

 offices in other parts of the State. 



The subject of irrigation has become 

 of the highest importance to the State, 

 and a bill was passed to secure this 

 object. A commission is created to 

 have charge of the undertaking, and 

 it is empowered to engage the services 

 of skillful engineers, whose business it 

 shall be to make surveys, to ascertain 

 the best mode of districting the State 

 for irrigation purposes, and to draft 

 plans for carrying out the work. 



Another subject of no less impor- 

 tance to the prosperity of the State is 

 the disposal of the debris from hy- 

 draulic mining. At present it flows 

 into the rivers, filling them up, and is 

 carried by freshets over the fertile low- 

 lands, causing their destruction. This 

 prevails to a great extent through 

 northern California. The losses by 

 floods in February, which in the main 

 were chargeable to the debris, were 

 estimated at $75,000,000. Nothing was 

 done by the Legislature on the subject. 

 Various resolutions relating to the 

 financial policy of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, removal of troops from the 

 Southern States, civil-service reform, 

 railroads, etc., were introduced before 

 the Legislature, but failed to be ap- 

 jga ^ proved. The session closed early in 

 March. Some fifteen hundred and 

 sixty bills were introduced in both 

 Houses, a large number of which failed to be- 

 come laws. 



The certainty of the ultimate adoption of a 

 system of irrigation in the State, in consequence 

 of the passage of a bill for that end, was very 

 favorably received. A large tract on the west- 

 ern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it 

 was thought, would become far more produc- 

 tive under the system. Below the altitude of 

 two thousand feet, the hills or mountains are 

 essentially the same in all their characteristics 

 of soil, shape, accessibility, and climate. The 

 length of territory included in this slope, or 

 Foot-hills, is about "four hundred miles, and the 

 w r idth from five to thirty miles. The entire area 



