Board of Equalization tells. For it has been shown in the report that the ways in which taxation is escaped are more numerous than ever before; that while personal property has always evaded assessment, real property has now found it possible to follow the same course; that the attempts to impose double taxation have in a large number of cases been eluded by resort to shifts which resulted in the loss of even single taxation; that the endeavor to break up land monopoly, by taxing uncultivated lands at the same rate as culti vated, has operated as a raid upon the small farmers; that owing to the exemption of growing crops from taxation, and the failure to provide for the assessment of the mature crops, this important class of personal property largely escapes taxation; that owing to the ambiguities and confusions of the new Constitution, the Board of Equalization has been prevented from equalizing assessments generally; that under the new system the State is at the mercy, first of the assessors, secondly of the tax-payers; that whether the assessments are made by the first or the second, the interests of the State appear to be equally subordinated; and it is apparent that some three or four hundred millions of property continue to pay no taxes whatever.

The board wants some provision which will render the assessors intelligent or conscientious. That they are not so at present the board thinks itself bound to conclude from the manner in which real estate has been assessed. With a unanimity and a perversity seldom equaled and never surpassed, the assessors have reversed the new constitutional rule in regard to cultivated and uncultivated land, and have in practice evidently assessed the former by the latter. But the most remarkable result of all is the graduation of the assessments in accordance with the increase in size of the farms. Everywhere the small farm has been assessed higher than the large one. In every county the value per acre of ten, twenty, and fifty-acre farms has been rated higher than that of the hundred, two-hundred, four-hundred, and six-hundred-and-forty-acre farms. The fact re

mains that the new rule has thus far failed, and it is to be ascertained whether the principle underlying it, or the method of appointing assessors, is most at fault. In regard to the latter, it must be admitted that thus far the plan of electing these officers has not resulted well for the State. It is notorious that property of all kinds escapes assessment.

A bill to authorize a commission to act on the subject of the adulteration of food and medicines was introduced in the House and referred to the Committee on Epidemics and Diseases. Their report presented an alarming state of affairs, of which the following statement contains some details:

The extent to which poisonous adulteration appears to be carried on in the United States is such that it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that VOL. XXI.-6 A

murder had become one of the commonest incidents of trade and manufacture. Nothing can be more horwhich manufacturers of all kinds appear to employ rible than the cold indifference to consequences with deadly and noxious materials. We are forced to conclude that there are in this country thousands upon thousands of men who are perfectly willing to spread death and disease broadcast over the community if in dling, cheating, substituting bad and sham for good and so doing they can make a little larger profit. Swingenuine materials, are methods so usual as to be al most the rule. Adulterations enter into almost everything that is eaten, that is drunk, that is worn, that is used. And disease and death go hand in hand with adulteration every where.

Our children are poisoned by the dye-stuffs used upon their dresses and their stockings. The candy they eat is poisoned. The papers which we put on our walls are poisoned. The cards which we use in ficial flowers our wives and daughters employ are poivisiting or for social purposes are poisoned. The artisoned. The bread we eat is poisoned. The bakingpowders, of which some two hundred kinds are on the market, are nearly all poisonous. The pickles which we put upon our tables are deadly. Our coffee, canned goods are poisoned. Our candles, our oils, the our tea, our sugar, our butter and cheese, all our cosmetics our women use so freely, are full of danger. The toys, the puzzles, the block maps, which we put in the hands of our children, may carry destruction ease is to be warded off, there is scarcely a genuine drug to be had anywhere.

with them. And as for the medicines with which dis

The attention of the Legislature was so engrossed with the drainage act that little time remained for the consideration of many other important measures; consequently a final adjournment took place on March 4th, under the provisions of the Constitution. No appropriation bill was passed, nor an apportionment bill. The latter was required to conform to the returns of the recent census. So much important business remained to be considered, that the Governor, on March 24th, called an extra session of the Legislature, and appointed April 4th as the day on which it should commence. The objects of this session were:

1. To enact a general appropriation bill, which shall contain no item or items of appropriation other than such as are required to pay the salaries of the State officers, the expenses of the government, and of the institutions under the exclusive control and management of the State, for the thirty-third and thirtyfourth fiscal years.

cretion of the Legislature, to provide that the State 2. To levy the rates of taxation, or, in the disBoard of Equalization shall fix such an ad valorem rate of taxation upon each one hundred dollars of taxable property of the State, which, after allowing the per cent required by law to be allowed for delinquen cies in and cost of collection of taxes, shall be sufficient upon and directed to be raised by the Legislature for to raise the specific amount of revenue determined the thirty-third and thirty-fourth fiscal years.

3. To appropriate money to pay the deficiencies in appropriations for the support of the civil government of this State for the thirty-first and thirty-second fiscal years.

4. To divide the State into senatorial, assembly, and congressional districts.

5. To enact a general road law.

6. To send appointments to the Senate for their confirmation.

The extra session commenced on April 4th.. In the Senate, the first business was the adop

tion of a resolution to proceed to the election of officers for the session, by a vote of 19 to 14. The House assembled at the same time, and the Speaker chosen at the previous session took the chair. A point of order was raised, that the House was not organized. The Chair held the House to be regularly organized by its officers all being in place as elected at the opening of the regular session. A motion was made to notify the Senate of the organization of the House. A substitute was offered to this motion, that the House proceed to organize by electing certain officers. On a point of order raised, the Chair ruled the motion by way of substitute out of order. The House, if not organized, can not entertain the motion under the prevailing organization. If the House had desired to organize over, it could have done so at twelve o'clock, and, if it should have done so then, the Speaker is a usurper. However, by consent, debate would be heard on the resolution. The following proceedings then took place:

Mr. Kellogg argued that the officers do not hold over; that an extra session, so far as officers are concerned, is a new Legislature, as they are elected not for a legislative term, but for the session.

Mr. May held that the officers hold over, and thought there could be no doubt of it. This is the twenty-fourth, not the twenty-fifth Legislature. There is no precedent that the officers lose place by adjournment sine die, except at the end of the term. The Senate re-elected this year, but it was a new Senate, although composed of the same men as in the twenty-third Senate.

Mr. Freer held to the same views, and said the adjournment sine die was adjournment without day, but that did not cut off the terms when a day is given for reassembling. He read from Cushing's" Elements " in support, and additional sections, showing that the clerks hold (until removed by resolution) for the entire term for which the Legislature is elected. He opposed reorganization because it would cause delay and be revolutionary in character.

Mr. Griffiths favored reorganization. He cited the journal of the House of Louisiana, March, 1878, then convened in extra session, where the officials were retained by resolution regularly passed. Also journal of the Iowa House, January, 1862, in extra session, where, by resolution, the old officers, so far as deemed necessary, were reappointed. Also journal of the Senate of Illinois, 1867, in extra session, when by resolution certain officers were chosen. Also journal of the House of Indiana, 1872, extra session, when the House entered into a new clection. He said if any doubt was left as to the matter, it might involve the laws passed, and so a reorganization had better be had. There might also be officers who can be dispensed with. Mr. Young had at first thought adjournment sine die dissolved the organization, but on examining the law he had come to the settled conviction that he had been in error. Adjournment is a term somewhat confused in some minds; adjournment is not prorogation, not dissolution. The members-elect constitute the Legislature, even when not in session, and hence the power given in the Constitution to call the Legislature together after adjournment, thus recognizing the existence of the body, though not in session. He cited Cushing's "Law and Practice," section 196, in sup

port.

The motion by way of a substitute was lost, yeas 17, nays 47; and the original motion to notify the Senate of the organization of the House was adopted, yeas 36, nays 28.

This extra session continued until May 14th. The bill for the apportionment of the State into election districts failed to pass. Many efforts were made to legislate on subjects not embraced in the proclamation of the Governor calling the session. The time of the Legislature was thus unnecessarily occupied, and some important measures failed to pass.

The report of the Railroad Commissioners was a clear statement of the difficulties encountered by them, and of the conclusions forced upon them by the study of the transportation question. They discovered, before they had been at work long, that it was impossible to regulate freights and fares in an arbitrary and sweeping way without producing far greater evils than any heretofore alleged to exist. They found also that to regulate transportation charges on any other principles than those which were already in operation, would necessitate an entire reorganization of the whole business, and would demand a knowledge and a capacity such as that business has never developed yet in any country, notwithstanding its employment of the most acute intelligences. There were but two methods of procedure open to them. They might pander to the unreasoning demand for a sweeping reduction of charges, with the certainty that in so doing they must injure the public quite as much as the railroads; or they might follow out the principles already established, and endeavor, through them, to reach results which would benefit the public without injuring the corporations. They have chosen the second of these

courses.

They point out, in vindication of their decision, that no commission appointed for similar purposes has ever yet been able to arrive at any other general conclusion; that every attempt to deal violently with the problem, and to adjust it by sheer force, has failed disastrously; that every such failure has involved serious injury to the public interests; and that the unavoidable deduction from all existing experience in this direction is, that equitable and reasonable methods are the only ones which can produce beneficial results. The commissioners dwell upon the importance of understanding the principle of the maximum in transportation. They quote the maxim that high maximum means low minimum; they show that this is the secret of successful transportation; that, in fact, it is only possible to provide for the carriage of low-priced staples at minimum rates by fixing the rates on highclass merchandise correspondingly high.

the Legislature on Prisons is more of a generThe report of the Assembly Committee of al survey of the most important conclusions reached by experiment in all parts of the country, than a presentation of the features of the system in California. It shows that the question of the disposition and treatment of convicts is undergoing more and more radical changes, and that the old views and ways are

being discarded wherever the existing institutions render it practicable to introduce reforms in prison management. It is now recognized by all who have examined the subject that every prison ought to be at least as much a reformatory as a place of confinement; that the reformation of criminals can only be undertaken hopefully by such methods as give the convicts definite desirable objects, which they may attain by their unassisted efforts; that rewards and punishments are the necessary groundwork of any such system; that it must be applied by men specially fitted for the work, and who ought to have undergone a distinct training in penology. It is also beginning to be believed that when the sentence of the prisoner is indeterminate-that is, left to be decided by his own conduct-the prospect of reformation is much greater than under the old method, since the prisoner is thus afforded hope without restriction. The Crofton Prison system, and those which have grown out of it, all tend more and more toward reliance upon the prisoner himself, and this is evidently the scientific mode of procedure. For, if a man who has fallen into evil courses is to be reclaimed, it is clear that he must determine to help himself, and that, no matter what assistance he derives from without, all the really useful action must come from within.

It has been found that by appealing to men's self-respect, and by treating them as though they were by no means irreclaimable, the latent ambition, the slumbering conscience, the paralyzed manhood, can be stimulated and given new life, and that the reformations wrought by these means are practically the only ones which are permanent. It is important to observe that economy goes hand-in-hand with humanity. Not only is it right to attempt the reform of the criminal, but it is to the interest of the public Treasury to do so. Crime is waste, in all its forms, and our old systems of dealing with it have been as wasteful as itself. fact, we have only continued to give crime a fixed abiding-place and a central rallying-point, and there can be no doubt that our jails and State prisons have made ten times more scoundrels than they ever cured. To alter all this in accordance with the new lights is not only to rid the community of its most dangerous elements, but to prevent the revival of these elements, and at the same time to make crime largely self-sustaining in the prisons."

"In

By the new Constitution of the State the management of the State prisons is vested in a board of directors. Five persons were appointed by the Governor in 1880. Subsequently charges, of a serious character were made by the public press reflecting upon the board of directors and the warden of St. Quentin's Prison; whereupon these officers requested the Governor to appoint a commission to examine into the general management of the prisons. This commission made a report in August, which contained some important statements

relative to the general management of penal institutions. It was subsequently followed by a prison-reform convention, at which important papers were read and questions discussed. The Drainage Act of the Legislature, for the repeal of which a protracted and unsuccessful effort was made at the last session, was finally declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. The principal grounds of objection to the act were that it provided for other purposes than those which are specified in the title, and that it established double taxation, and delegated unconstitutional powers to local boards. This decision was final.

The progress of the State has been of the most substantial character. Banks of issue being prohibited by her Constitution from the beginning, and even when the national currency was adopted and made legal tender by Federal law, the feeling against paper money of any kind was strong enough to maintain the gold standard all through the war, and through the era of inflation which followed it. California, consequently, did not feel the seeming prosperity attendant upon the great rise in nominal values which took place in the East as the currency depreciated, and she also escaped the inevitable reaction which came with the appreciation of the currency and the fall of prices. Yet the State did not escape the effects of the failure of some of the most productive mines and a consequent shrinkage of values. This was strikingly manifested in stock values, the highest prices of which were reached in January, 1875, and is shown by the following table:

Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran-
cisco board, January, 1875..
Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran-
cisco board, July, 1881...

$282,805,404

17,902,700 $264,402,704

75,600,000 945,000

$74,655,000

84,240,000

851,000

$83,889,000

27,000,000

825,000

$26,175,000

It should be remembered that the famous Comstock mine did not reach its maximum until 1877, that in twenty years it yielded three hundred million dollars, and that it dropped nearly thirty-three millions in three years.

The tendency of gold-mining to assume a stable character is shown by the annual steadiness of the crop. The great improvements which have taken place in mining machinery and methods now enable the working with profit of low-grade ores, of which there are regular and enormous deposits. How mining of this kind is developing is shown by the fact that the foundries of San Francisco during the year have turned out machinery for over a thousand stamps. The injunctions which have

At the close of 1878, 663 miles of railway were in operation in Cape Colony.

The Cape settlements are bound to Great Britain by looser ties of interest and sentiment than any of the other dependencies of the empire. The bond has not been strengthened by the cares and difficulties which they have given to every English administration, and the incessant loss of British blood and treasure in unpopular Caffre wars which the connection has entailed since the first annexation in 1812. More than two thirds of the Queen's subjects in South Africa are aliens in blood, language, and customs, while the commercial and military advantages of the connection bear no proportion to the sacrifices it has cost. For these reasons the home Government and the British

public have long desired to see the plan of autonomous government and self-dependence realized in these troublesome dependencies. The complicated relations of the British Government with the Anglo-Saxon settlers, the Afrikanders, and the native populations, which under the management of ignorant military commanders and crown officials involved the commission of the numberless wrongs and cruelties of the past, still stand in the way of England's withdrawing her aid and authority from the Cape. The fixed idea of an administrative theorist, adopted as a practical policy for the consummation of this object, was one of the chief causes which led to the last three

For the first six months of the year only.

wars which have afflicted these ill-fated communities. Lord Carnarvon, after the happy effects of the confederation act in Canada became apparent, conceived the idea of uniting all the European settlements of South Africa under a similar confederate government, to which the virtual sovereignty should be transferred. This scheme was adopted as the traditional policy in Downing Street, and was enthusiastically pursued by the Queen's representatives at the Cape. The Transvaal was annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in April, 1877, in a way which the people of Great Britain have only come to understand since The usurpation the rebellion of the Boers. was excused on the pretext that the people of the republic were misgoverned by their own authorities to such an extent that they hailed British rule with thanksgiving. Zoolooland was then invaded, with scarcely any pretext, for the object of rendering the Boers content with the annexation, and to remove a possible danger to the future confederation, and induce Cape Colony to join it by crushing the only organized and formidable native power in this part of Africa. This disastrous war, which cost £5,000,000 and thinned the ranks of British regiments, excited a strong repugnance in Great Britain to any further military operations in South Africa, although the entire responsibility for the Zooloo campaign lies at the door of the Imperial Government. The people government since 1872, were given to underof Cape Colony, who had possessed responsible stand that for the future they must undertake ministry under Mr. Sprigg instituted a course their own defenses. Thereupon the colonial of arbitrary policy entirely in the spirit of Sir Bartle Frere's Zooloo stroke.

The Basutos of Basutoland, a laborious, pastoral, and agricultural people, who were becoming rapidly civilized and Christianized, populous and wealthy, had the custom of buyfire-arms from the wall except on one or two ing every man a gun. They never took their occasions, when they did valiant service for the Queen, affording conspicuous assistance in the late Zooloo war. With frightful rashness, a disarmament act was carried through the Legis

lature, and the command went forth that the Basutos should deliver up their guns. The French Protestant missionaries who lived among them protested against the injustice of the demand.

the home Government of its impolicy and Sir Garnet Wolseley warned danger. The Basutos regarded these weapons diamonds were discovered in West Griquaas a badge of manhood and dignity. When land, the Basutos were the first and principal laborers; and each took home as his richest reward a gun which he had purchased at an exorbitant price. The command to give up the weapons which they had been encouraged unmerited disgrace. Letsie, the principal chief, to acquire, was regarded by every one as an and his people, who remained loyal throughout