in the North Sea. The English subjects who were interested appealed to their Government to secure reparation, but their request was received coldly. The conference held at the Hague in 1881 for the regulation of the North Sea fisheries, in which the Netherlands, Germany, France, Great Britain, Belginm, Sweden, and Denmark took part, adopted a resolution recommending the governments to take measures to prevent the injury of submarine cables by fishermen.

When this question came up at the Electrical Congress at Paris, in 1881, the French Government proposed a conference for the discussion of the subject. The conference met Oct. 16, 1882, in Paris. Representatives of France, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Servia, Roumania, the United States, Colombia, British India, Japan, China, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Argentine Republic, and Costa Rica were participants. The conference confined itself to the subject of the protection of cables in time of peace. After long deliberations, a compromise project was adopted. Any person who intentionally or through criminal negligence injures or breaks a submarine cable, is declared an offender against the law. The courts of the country to which the vessel belongs upon which the illegal act is committed, are to have jurisdiction of the offense.

CALIFORNIA. State Government.-The State officers during the year 1883 were the following: Governor, George Stoneman, Democrat; Lieutenant-Governor, John Daggett; Secretary of State, T. L. Thompson; Treasurer, W. A. January; Comptroller, John P. Dunn; Superintendent of Public Instruction, W. T. Welcker; Attorney-General, C. E. Marshall; Surveyor-General, H. I. Willey. Judiciary: Supreme Court-Chief-Justice, Robert F. Morrison; Associate Justices, M. H. Myrick, E. W. McKinstry, E. M. Ross, J. D. Thornton, J. R. Sharpstein, S. B. McKee.

Legislative Session.-The Legislature, consisting of 30 Democrats and 10 Republicans in the Senate, and 58 Democrats, 21 Republicans, and one Independent in the House, met on the 8th of January and adjourned on the 13th of March. Among the measures passed were the following:

Bills in aid of the State University; the road law; concerning tax-sale redemptions; classifying municipal corporations; providing for a preparatory course for the university in the common-school system; a new and good street law; in aid of decrepit veterans of the Mexican War; in aid of foundling asylums; in aid of viticulture; in aid of horticulture and the destruction of fruit insect-pests; protecting food-fish; settling contests as to preferred labor claims; providing for a wall at the Folsom Prison; a fair municipal government bill; giving boards of health control over drainage-fittings for houses; a county government bill, about equally balanced between good and ill provisions; in aid of silk-culture; to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases into the State;

providing additional accommodations for the insane; requiring the insane with sufficient estates to pay for their care giving a fit salary to the Clerk of the State Board of Equalization; providing for better investment of school moneys; aiding the State Agricultural Society; aiding the Mining Bureau; paying some just claims; aiding the industrial education of the deaf and dumb and the blind; providing for the care and repair of State buildings, and aiding State normal schools; and submitting the text-book question to a vote; some few amendments to the Code, of no particular significance, the best being a new provision for authentication of marriage; the repeal of the Sunday bill; the street railway-ticket bill; the Lake Tahoe law; the oleomargarine bill; the Statistical Bureau forestry bill, limited to a small region, and hence tending to prevent general remedies being applied; the legislative and congressional partisan appor tionment bills; the bill legislating out of office Reoffice in Mono instead of impeaching the incumbent; publican Harbor Commissioners; vacating a judicial the hair-cutting bill for county prisoners; for the destruction of wild animals; as to refunding the indebtedness of cities; auditing the accounts of the Insurance Commissioner; the jurisdiction of justices; as to juvenile offenders; as to the method of submitting constitutional amendments; as to drawbridges in cities; purchasing portraits of Governors; as to the manner of assessing railroad property.

The following are the new congressional districts: 1st-Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity, Siskiyou, Shasta, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Tehama, Colusa, Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma, and Napa counties; 2d-Butte, Sutter, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Tuolumne, and Mariposa; 3d-Yolo, Sacramento, Solano, Contra Costa, Marin, and Alameda; 4th-part of San Francisco; 5th-part of San Francisco, and all of San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara; 6th-San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Kern, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Alpine, Tulare, Fresno, Mono, and Inyo.

The Governor's Views.-Gov. Stoneman was

inaugurated on the 10th of January. In his address he expressed the following views regarding the regulation of freights and fares, the Sunday law, the Chinese question, prison reform, and irrigation:

Three years have now elapsed since the people solemnly expressed their views upon the subject of the regulation of fares and freights, and delegated to a commission, chosen under the new organic law, the authority to execute their expressed will. It is to be has entirely neglected and refused to take any posideeply regretted that the retiring Railroad Commission tive steps toward enforcing its powers. It is to be earnestly hoped that the incoming Commission will prove to be composed of men of sufficient courage and sagacity to meet this issue in a spirit of fairness; to deal justly by the transportation companies and candidly by the people. I wish it to be distinctly understood that all the power and influence of the Executive department of the government will be cheerfully exercised on behalf of the commission to bring the issue between the people and the transportation companies to a final and satisfactory termination. The question of the regulation of fares and freights is the great living issue of the day, and no postponement of its solution to a future time will prove satisfactory either to the people of this State or the Union. The question of the power of the State to fix and regulate the charges for fares and freights upon transportation lines within the State has passed beyond the line of

legitimate argument. As to the policy of enforcing the power of the State to regulate fares and freights there can not, since the result of the late election, be further doubt.

Sumptuary laws are and ever have been opposed to Democratic teachings, and find no support among liberal-minded people. For many years sections 299, 300, and 391, of the Penal Code, commonly called the "Sunday law," have been on our statute-books. Under slightly varying forms this law has been in existence in this State during the major portion of the past quarter of a century. Now and then spasmodic efforts have been made to enforce it, but without success. In every contest before the courts the condition of public opinion has been shown by the fact that the law has been practically placed on trial, and not the particular defendant at the bar. In cases where the testimony adduced has been conclusive that the alleged offense has been committed, juries have almost uniformly refused to convict-a state of facts never before observed with reference to any other portion of our criminal jurisprudence. Such is the condition of the sections above cited. It is unwise to encumber the statute-books with an enactment which experience has proved can not be enforced. The result at the late election is an emphatic indorsement of the attitude of the now dominant party on this important subject, and our duty in the premises is perfectly clear. We all concede that those sections of our Codes which provide for certain holidays and nonjudicial days are essential to happiness and health. The repeal of the "Sunday law" will in no wise interfere with the permanency or effect of our civil legislation in the matter of a day of rest. Nor is there any disposition to disturb those penal enactments which are intended to protect religious assemblages from all unseemly interference.

Within the past year Congress has granted to the people of this coast partial relief from the much-deplored evil of Chinese immigration. There are some who affect to believe this important question finally settled by the statute referred to. There are those who evince a desire to nullify its effect by a loose construction of its terms and an inefficient execution of its provisions. The law had hardly taken effect when

another bill was introduced into the Senate of the United States, and I believe is now pending in that body, under which many thousands of Chinese now serving under labor contracts in the West India islands might be permitted to cross the territory of the United States to their homes in the Chinese Em

pire. Considering that we have no power to deport the Chinese, if they were once permitted to land in this country, they might remain here permanently. Against this new danger the people of this coast will depend upon their representatives in Congress to guard.

The congregate system of imprisonment, which, owing to the peculiar construction and want of cellroom in our prisons, is necessarily in vogue therein, is, in my opinion, not conducive of the moral wellbeing of the prisoner. The most important object of penal confinement ought to be to effect a reformation of the prisoner. I would respectfully recommend that, if practicable, a system of isolation and solitary confinement be instituted among those of the most vicious character. In the absence of such a system of isolation, San Quentin Prison, from its geographical position, might be made a distributing prison. All convicts should be sentenced to that institution in order that they may be registered and graded, the prison directors selecting those for distribution to Folsom and any other branch prison hereafter established. After careful study and examination of past records, the comparatively good should be retained and the vicious and incorrigible confined at another prison, so far as the interests of the State may permit. This system, strictly carried out, would form a perfect record of the antecedents and disposition of all convicts within the State. This system is not only essential

for the good of the prisoner and for the guidance of the directors, but would enable the district attorneys of each county to be always able to procure a complete record to embody in their information or indictments the number of convictions of each defendant, if any such there be, as they are now compelled by law to do under what is known as the "Prior-Conviction Act." In a large portion of the State, agricultural interests are being developed by the aid of irrigation. The history of all countries dependent upon irrigation shows that this practice has necessitated the enactment of laws especially designed for the protection and regulation of irrigation, the maintenance of order, equity, and economy in the appropriation and use of waters, and that the subject has been one of the most difficult to deal with in legislation. Our own experience, limited though it be, is sufficient to establish this fact, as our courts are crowded with litigation growing out of irrigation practices, which constitute a serious drawback to our prosperity.

Finances. The receipts for the thirty-second fiscal year (1881) were $4,751,573.66, and for the thirty-third fiscal year (1882), $4,698,654.41. Of these, for the thirty-second year, $3,636,008.23, and for the thirty-third, $3,685,367.60, came from property-taxes; and from poll-taxes, for the thirty-second year, $316,869,48, and for the thirty-third year, $248,816.30.

During the two years the disbursements on account of the State were:

The following tables show the assessed values of the several classes of property in the State for the years 1881 and 1882 respectively: ASSESSED VALUES OF PROPERTY FOR 1881.

Value of real estate....

Value of improvements on real estate
Value of personal property, exclusive of money..
The amount of money

Value of railroads operated in more than one

county....

Total.....

TAX-RATE FOR 1881.

For general fund...

87 7 cents

For school fund..

22 4 cents

For interest and sinking fund......

Total......

5.4 cents

ASSESSED VALUES OF PROPERTY FOR

$848,869,810 115,218,041 146,180,978 18,597,566

84,829,664 .$658,691,059

$2,190,084 1,800,000 815,000 65.5 cents- $8,805,084 1882. .$331,808,198 Value of improvements on real estate 114,516,747 Value of personal property, exclusive of money.. 120,848,453 The amount of money.. 12,702,056 27,602,818

Value of real estate...

Value of railroads operated in more than one county

Total......

TAX-RATE FOR 1882.

For general fund....... For school fund

For interest and sinking fund.

Total......

59 6 cents- $3,186,735 The counties paid to the State for taxes in 1881, $4,230,075.68, and in 1882, $4,144,659.93.

From other sources the State received, for 1881, $52,497.98, and for 1882, $553,994.48, making a total of all receipts from all sources for the thirty-second year, of $4.751,573.66, and for the thirty-third year of $4,698,654.41. The amount of outstanding warrants, June 30, 1882, was $286,749.69; balance in Treasury, $1,016,021.77. On the financial condition of the State, Gov. Perkins, in his valedictory message, says:

The State has taxable property of the assessed value of about $610,000,000. Her interest - bearing debt amounts to $3,293,500. Of that debt the State owns, holding in trust for educational purposes, $2,690,000. This leaves only $603,500 of her bonds in private hands; and there is now in the Treasury, and provided for by taxes already levied, something more than $500,000 applicable to their purchase or redemption. That showing is a good one for a Commonwealth that has expended within the past ten years more than $4,000,000 upon public buildings, more than $4,500,000 for charities, and more than $2,000,000 for public education.

Within fifteen years our expenditures for educational purposes have increased from the annual average of $275,000 to that of the current fiscal year-$2,029,974; expenses, ordinary and extraordinary, have been met; permanent improvements of great value have been made; taxation has not been excessive, comparatively speaking, and the public debt has been steadily reduced.

During the present administration the ordinary expenses of government have been light, the extraordinary ones great. The public institutions have been ably and economically managed. The various offices have been efficiently filled and prudently conducted. The expenditures for all purposes have averaged $4,244,038 annually. For the five years preceding, the annual average expenditure was $3,633,902. The increased average expenditure yearly has been 8610,136. Such increase is owing in part to extraordinary appropriations made-and, in my opinion, wisely made

I entered upon the duties of my office with deficiency bills amounting to more than $218,000. A part of this sum was for increase in salaries of the judiciary, and expense of Railroad Commission and Board of Equalization, that were created by the new Constitution, and began life the middle of the fiscal year. The Legislature of 1880 appropriated $414,000

more than it levied a tax to raise. Hence resulted the tax levy for 1881 of 65.5 cents as against that for 1880 of only 59 cents. The last Legislature paid all these accumulated debts; there was a falling off in the assessed value of property of $51,000,000, and yet, as for 1882 was reduced to 56-6 cents; and to-day our the result of prudent economy in outlay, the tax levy public buildings are all in a most excellent state of preservation; and one of our prisons almost placed upon a self-sustaining basis.

California contributes $190,000 annually to twenty orphan asylum societies toward the expense of caring for the children. The insane asylums cost $458,000, and the State prisons $450,000.

Viticulture. The Board of Viticultural Commissioners has performed its labors with credit to itself and profit to the State. Established but three years, it has seen the increased plantation of from 50,000 to 60,000 acres of land in vines, which plantations were made mainly through the encouraging influence of this board, it being also instrumental in choice of the vines planted and the locations selected. The actual present value of these new plantations is over $15,000,000, and the increased value by this reason given to the surrounding properties must be fully as much more. The impetus thus given to the plantation of vineyards still continues. The present plantations will yield the producers after the next vintage not less than six and a half million dollars per annum. There are now planted not less than 100,000 acres of vineyards, of which, probably, 7,000 are planted with the choicest of imported vines.

Election Returns.-The result of the election in November, 1882, was as follows: For Governor, Stoneman, Democrat, 90,724; Estee, Republican, 67,175; McDonald, Prohibitionist, 5,765; McQuiddy, Greenbacker, 1,020. All the State officers elected were Democrats. The Democrats also elected two Congressmen-atlarge, four district Congressmen, three Railroad Commissioners (one in each district), and three members of the State Board of Equalization (first, third, and fourth districts). In the second district the Republicans elected the member of this board. The following is the vote for district Congressmen :

ada, when considered in degrees of longitude, its breadth in miles is only 3,200 from extremity to extremity, and from ocean-port to oceanport, only 2,200. From Port Nelson, on Hudson bay, to the mouth of the Skuna river, in British Columbia, is only 1,360 miles.

The physical features of Canada, considered as a whole, are very regular. The northeastern coast-line is deeply indented by Hudson and James bays, while its eastern one is broken irregularly by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy.

The lakes of Canada are detailed in the following table:

Second.

Third..

Fourth..

Champlain St. John...

Wollaston*.

Deer* Winnipeg Winnipegosis.. Manitoba..

Woods...

Pacific ocean, and from Dixon Entrance to the Arctic ocean, in latitude 70°, the United States Territory Alaska; on the north lies the Arctic ocean; while on the northeast and east are Baffin bay, Davis straits, the Atlantic ocean, Labrador, Straits of Belle Isle, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Labrador, though part of the mainland, is under the administration of New foundland. Included within these boundaries are 3,370,000 square miles of land.

The provinces of Canada are:

miles.

in 1881.

Capital of province.

220,000

1,923,228

188,000

1,359,027

27,000

821,233

20,000

440,572

123,000

65.954

841,000

49,459

2,000 108,891

Winnipeg. Victoria. Charlottetown.

Toronto. Quebec. Fredericton.

Halifax.