GERMANY, TIIllOUGII SWITZERLAND, TO ITALY. 79 



her. Every body in the car looked at me, and I became the lion 

 of the time. My fair neighbor asked me many questions about 

 the gold ; how long I had lived in California, and so on. I told 

 her eleven years. " "Why," she said, " and you have not been 

 killed ! IIow have you cseaped so many years without having 

 been murdered? But," she added, "may be you had a strong 

 guard around you." I told her that, living in the country, far 

 from any neighbors, my doors were never locked niglit or day. 

 She heard all this with great surprise, asking how it was that 

 newspapers gave so many accounts of murders in America, par- 

 ticularly in California. The gentlemen passengers sitting in the 

 cars, with inquiring looks, evidently desiring to hear my reply 

 to this question, I explained to her that whenever a murder is 

 committed the local paper will chronicle it, and neighboring pa- 

 pers in the towns and cities repeat it, so that it appears to the 

 foreigner that each announcement refers to a different murder. 

 I remarked, too, that we had no more murders than other nations, 

 but that with us every murder, suicide, or railroad accident is 

 published far and wide, whereas in European countries no such 

 thing is done. I asked her whether in St. Petersburg, Moscow, 

 etc., the dead houses are ever em-pty ? whether it is not often the 

 case that ten or fifteen persons are lying in these places, stretched 

 out by the hand of murder or suicide? whether this is not the 

 case even in the best governed, politest city in the world — Paris, 

 never a day passing that dozens are not found in the Seine ? But 

 who hears of these casualties ? Nobody save he who is in search 

 of one lost, or some stranger who goes to see them, led by curiosity. 

 This seemed to satisfy the lady as well as the rest of the company. 

 But now to the gentlemen of the press of this State a few lines, 

 which I hope they will take kindly. It is concerning the prac- 

 tice of copying accounts of murders, suicides, and robberies from 

 other papers ; of re-echoing, multiplying, and, in fact, spreading the 

 facts as far and wide as possible, so doing great injury and injus- 

 tice to our young State. Some of our papers are not satisfied 

 with such occurrences in our own State, but they will take these 

 accounts from the papers of Oregon, "Washington Territory, and 

 "Washoe. These places are not known in Europe, but California 

 is well known ; consequently, these publications are at the ex- 

 pense of our State alone. This is even the case in the Eastern 

 States. For instance, a San Francisco paper states : ""We extract 

 from the Portland Courier" (or whatever the name may be) such 



