the man on the stand. In answer to my questions he said his name was Charles Harrison; that he was on his way from Independence Flat, in Calaveras County, to Stockton, with his wife; that on the morning previous they were overtaken by a Mexican driving a band of horses and mules; that his wife was riding a horse, which he described as a sorrel, with light mane and tail, and that this horse had, on the day before, become very lame; that the Mexican examined the lame horse, and finally offered to give him the mare his wife was now riding, if he would give him for it an ounce to boot, which he did; that the Mexican gave him a writing which he said was a bill of sale, but that he, the witness, did not read Spanish; and here my man produced a paper, which was handed to the judge for inspection. His Spanish, however, proving defective, Daygo Joe, a juryman from the Western Islands, translated it so far as to make it appear that one Antonio Cruz, owning a pinto mare branded AD on the left hip, had sold the same to the bearer. Right enough in form, thought I. That that was all he knew about the matter, until Dutch Aleck tried to take the mare away from his wife that morning, and on his resisting, summoned the crowd which I had seen. I must confess that my client's story did not impress me very favorably, as his manner was so decidedly against him. He stood crossexamination, though, like a Trojan.

"I was not altogether pleased with the effect of his story on the jury, so I determined to play my highest trump, and called the woman to the stand. As she came forward and was sworn, the effect was magical. The jurymen, who had listened to the husband's testimony with apathy, roused up and paid the closest attention. Judging that she could tell her own story without my help, I merely said:

***Madam, you have heard the testimony of the complainant and of your husband-please tell the court and jury what occurred with regard to the horse in question ?'

"She began: 'If you please, gentlemen, we were keeping a little house in Township No. 5, in Calaveras County, on the stage road. We had a little farm and a few horses and cows, and were getting along very nicely; but, about ten days ago, the house caught fire at night, and we only escaped with our lives. Almost everything was burned, even my dear little dead baby's cradle' (and here her eyes filled with tears). 'We started for Stockton on horseback, and on Sunday my horse grew very lame. We camped Sunday night, and Monday morning the Mexican came along with his horses and mules, and my husband exchanged the horse I rode for this mare. I do not know what bargain was made, as I did not hear them talking. My husband put my saddle on the mare, and we were riding along this morning, when that man came up and claimed the mare as his. That is all I know about it. But, gentlemen, I beg of you do not keep us here any longer. If the mare belongs to that man, let him have her, but pray let us go. I am not well-only a weak womanand I must get to Stockton, where my friends and my husband's brother will aid us. Pray do not, do not detain us longer.'

"This, you will understand, is only the merest skeleton of her speech; for no man, unless he be a firstclass phonographer, can report a woman's testimony; but I tell you her speech fetched that jury. I believe if she had pleaded guilty, that jury would have acquitted her. They listened very impatiently to the attorney for

the prosecution, and when I arose to reply, I was told to 'Dry up,' 'Sit down,' 'Hold my jaw,' and so on, which I did. Then the foreman of the jury sprung to his feet and said, or more properly, shouted:

"'We find 'em not guilty, and the verdict of this ye jury is that Dutch Aleck can take his d-d old mare and git; and I'll give ten dollars to help buy the lady a horse and get her to Stockton. What d'ye say boys?"

"He was seconded by a perfect howl of delight, not only from his fellow-jurors but from the bystanders, and money and dust was poured into the hat until there must have been two or three hundred dollars. This, of course, ended the trial.

"I walked down to my office with my clients, followed, or rather surrounded, by the entire population of Forlorn Hope. With difficulty entering the cabin, and shutting the door, I invited my clients to sit down, which they did, one on the bunk, the other on ar empty candle-box, while I sat on the table. The man drew a long breath of relief. 'I'll be blowed if that wasn't a pretty close call,' said he, addressing his wife; "who'd have thought of running onto that sourkrout eater here? I thought we had doubled on him, sure. Never mind, Molly, you have helped me out of some tight places before, but I reckon this is the tightest one yet.'

"Then to me: 'Did you see them tears, Jedge, and hear that cradle business? Wasn't it too fine for any use?' and the fellow hugged himself and chuckled with delight, while the woman laughed outright.

began I.

"Why, do you mean "Mean-this is what I mean,' interrupted he, 'the whole thing was a put-up job. Me and Moll was runnin' a faro game at Mokelumne Hill, and some of the boys reckoned change of air and scenery would be good for us, and they told us to git, and we did git, pretty lively too.'

And the mare, and the bill of sale?' gasped I. "Oh, I borried the mare out of that Dutchman's corral,' replied he; 'he was full of beer, and snoozin' away on his back-stoop, so I borried the mare, and the bill of sale Moll got up. She can speak and write Spanish a few, can't ye, Moll?'

"Si, Señor,' was the merry answer.

"But,' continued the man, we did see a Mexican with a band of horses, and if I hadn't borried Dutchy's mare, likely he would, so it's all the same, you see,'

"To say that I was surprised, amazed, confounded, would be too mild. I was dumfounded. But my client, not noticing my confusion, went on:

"Now, Jedge, I want to do something for ye. I can't give ye this yer coin, because we've got to use it to git out o' here with; but I'll tell ye what I will do: I've got a paper writin' hyer for a lot of land in 'Frisco, out in them sand-hills. I don't reckon I'll ever see that town agin, so you fix up a docyment right and tight, and I'll give yer that land.'

"Here he produced a deed in due form, acknowl edged and recorded, to Hugh Mason, for a hundredacre lot on Market Street.

"Who is Hugh Mason?' said I.

"'Oh, that's me,' he replied; 'you needn't be afeard about takin' it. I got it honestly. I skun a feller out of it at draw, one night, in 'Frisco. Take it-it may be good for somethin' some day.'

"Finally, after some persuasion, I consented, and drew a deed from Hugh Mason to myself of the lot in question, and had him sign and acknowledge it before

'Old Baldy,' who was fortunately sober enough to attend to business, and my clients said good-bye, and, as they phrased it, 'got up and dusted.' I have never seen or heard of either of them since.

The deed lay around for some time, until one day in '53 I came across it and sent it to San Francisco to be recorded.

hills. One day in 1867, a gentleman came into my office, and asked me how much I would take for my hundred-vara lot on Market Street.

"I don't own any lot on Market Street,' said I. "Oh, yes, you do, unless you have sold it since yesterday,' replied he; the lot conveyed to you by Hugh Mason in 1852.'

"Then it flashed across me that it must be my sandhill lot.

"Well, to cut my story short, he offered me seventyfive thousand dollars for it, which I at once accepted. And such is the history of my first fee."

MARCUS P. WIGGIN.

AT THE LAST.

They do err who tell us Nature listens
Unto laugh or sigh from human lips;
That for human joy her sunshine glistens,
Or for human sorrow feels eclipse.

Nay the mighty Time - pulse throbbing, beating
In the rhythmic march of days and years,
Falters not for parting nor for meeting,
Stays in no wise for thy hopes nor fears.

So, poor child of Time, adrift in Being,
Blindly striving with the tides of fate,
Can it matter much-thy fighting, fleeing?
Comes the end not surely, soon or late?

Ah! poor heart, give o'er thy weary yearning!
Quit thy empty toil, O troubled brain!
There is still one guerdon for thy earning-

Lo the night comes :-sleep! and cease from pain.
BARTON GREY.

THE NOVEL.

A nation's literature is an index to its civilization. The cultivation of the study of letters and a high standard of literary work are consequent upon the refinement of a people. But may not literature bear to its country some more important relation than that of a result? May it not be a great element of national growth? I believe that literature is more than a mere accompaniment of culture, that it is a prime factor in advancing culture, that it is a proximate cause of civilization, that it may be made a mighty motor in redeeming from sluggishness and immorality the populace when taught to read.

For a clear understanding of the idea I desire to illustrate, let us consider civilization to mean the moral and social status of a people, and literature to be their learning and their fancy preserved in writing. It is the part that the latter may take in raising the moral and social condition of our country, that we are to regard. The department of literature that is most popular, and,

the manifold springs of human conduct find a source in the novel. With the novel the power lies of spreading abroad a sense of honor and of creating respect for true dignity of manhood. It should be life reproduced -not a mere representation of phases of existence, but an impressive guide to the grand purposes of living. In order to ascertain to what beneficial ends novel-producing may be directed among us, it will be necessary to give some thought to the possibilities of works of fiction in a democracy. There are at present noiseless elements of our national life working about us, determining its peculiarities, and commanding our attention, if we would know whether or not they are favorable to the novel that is to reform. Romances are more numerous and of a better order in Great Britain than in America. Some authors believe that the supremacy of the English in this respect is due to their systematized life. One writer of observant mind has assigned as a reason, to which he attached much importance, that in England almost the only readers of this style of literature are found among those who have little to do-the nobility, and the wealthy classes; that their leisure makes them exacting, and their exactions must be heeded, to insure the author's success. If this fact has a tendency to perfect the novel, it is entirely independent of the subject-matter, upon the treatment of which its lasting merit and power for usefulness must depend.

The subject-matter is the life portrayed. What are the distinctive marks of life in this republic, drawn by lapse of time? The cardinal principle of a democracy is original equality. We all start equals. It is curious, but true, that we claim equality with those only who have risen above us. The endeavor to justify our pretentions is one of the causes of the restlessness peculiar to us. I do not say that envy and jealousy actuate us in seeking to better ourselves. I prefer to think that it is the possibility of improvement, made manifest by the achievements of others, that impels us onward. But whatever may be the inner motive, the outward fact still remains. Democratic life is essentially nervous, active, a chapter of successes and reverses. It is with the details of this life our novelist must deal. Do they not present to him a more inviting prospect than the regulated order of an aristocratic existence?

Yet this is the life of which De Tocqueville has said that "nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests-in a word so anti-poetic." Anti-poetic let it be; earnestness, not poetry, is the essential of a novel. But petty, insipid, or crowded with paltry interests-never. Here the individual lives, here man stands an architect of fame, with his doubts, with his passions, in the presence of rare prosperities, or inconceivable wretchedness. These things are real, they are to be the novelist's story. In them each one will find something to touch his sympathy, to make him quiver with hope and exultation or bow in pity. 'Tis sympathy moulds the most of us, and especially the lowly. To that the novelist's creations must appeal that we may be made to glow with the inspiration of

manly purpose and with the possibilities born of resolve.

It may be asked why the novel has not made its appearance ere now, if it is so well adapted to our system of living. In struggling to exist we have had no time to look about us and write; and during our literary infancy the literature of a mother tongue was in its prime. Moreover, a literature cannot be built in a day. The true novel can be drawn only by one of keen observation and wide sympathies. I speak of sympathies not alone toward one's fellow-man, but toward one's fellow-people. Until some national feeling has sprung from the formative existence of a people, until national traits are developed in which we all take pride, we can expect no one to possess that subtle kinship with men at large, requisite to the broad effective purpose of the democratic novel. Our country has been pushed to convulsive heights from which she is gradually settling to that stable condition of society from which alone prosperity can be evolved. The trials of past years have brought us to realize that this is not a grand speculation, but that steady, honest exertion is the only precursor of success. The presence of schools in all quarters familiarizes the popular mind with letters. We have had the fancies of Poe, the natural beauties of Bryant and Longfellow, the sunny mysteries of Hawthorne, and the sturdy purity of Emerson. The time has come in our literary and historic growth for the advent of the novelist. It is for those who feel an interest in perpetuating the romance of life and of meaning, to aid the author in his self-imposed task of writing for the advancement of his race, not with the sole motive of enriching themselves. The age is propitious to the growth of strong men and women whom the writer must copy. The novel, true to the world it represents, must have much in common with humanity-to be true to itself it must turn this common bond to the ennobling of humanity. The quality of his models and the nature of their thoughts and utterances determine the value of the novelist's gift to his country. It is for the people to furnish him with the originals of those instructive lives which he is to present as an example to his readers. And especially is it the duty of those whose studies bring them in contact with the grandest characters of reality and of fancy, by their private lives and public opinions, to aid in fostering a general spirit of rectitude, that the novelist may be filled with it, and that all may know it and feel its nearness when breathed upon them from the pages of the opened volume.

Then can the novel be made to elevate the moral and social status of a people. The companion of man's quiet hours, it will speak to him in his retirement, when he can commune with the thoughts its teachings may inspire. It will address him without the hollow sounding of words to mock the solemnity of what it says. It will have influence with him because it confides in him privately and makes him the unobserved discoverer of his own failings. It will benefit him because his better nature, despite him, will be moved by all that is beautiful in its passages. In the presence of the true novel, man will grow erect in truth, as the human form before the figure of the Apollo unconsciously straightens itself. F. P. DEERING.

MY CIGARETTE.

It charms me by its haziness, as I

Am charmed by things I cannot fully learn. It charms me by its fragrance; and I yearn For nothing, ask no reasons, as I lie And watch the stagnant motions as they try Voluptuously to rise, attempt in turn To interlace each other, till they burn Their passion out, and kiss a faint good-bye. And then I fall in love myself; my heart Deliciously grows warm, my senses numb; Ideals crowd around; I do not know Their faces or their forms; but yet they start A thousand thoughts to motion, talking some, And interlacing as they come and go.

vailed, which attracted hither all brave mariners, all generous thinkers, all explorers anxious to open a new passage to the world. Time would fail me were I to attempt to cite all the names attached to this immortal enterprise. I must salute, however, en passant, our most illustrious contemporaries, Nelson, Childs, Lloyd, our fellow-countryman Garella; I would mention, above all, the illustrious Thomé de Gamond, who was the first to dream of tunneling the sub-marine isthmus from Calais to Dover. This dream is to-day being realized, and he saw the commencement of his enterprise before sleeping the last sleep. The highest degree of consolation to those who consecrate their lives to the pursuit of useful truths is to witness their hour of triumph.

From 1780 to our day a multitude of projects have succeeded each other, all pointing to the passage of the Isthmus-some of them the result of serious, profound study; others, of pure fantasy, where imagination had fuller play than science. But the last seven years have been productive of greater results than all the others. When the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 it produced a complete revolution in the commercial relations of the globe, and I doubt not but that this event exercised a great influence upon investigations which had for their object the cutting through of the American canal. In fact, since 1871, expeditions have followed each other in quick succession-wise, bold, persevering. These explorers returned laden with precious documents, ready to throw light upon this subject so full of mysteries. Let homage here be rendered to the enterprising men who aided science to make this gigantic stride! At the same time geographical studies, heretofore neglected in France, were resumed in consequence of the lamentable proof which demonstrated the need of them. The great questions touching upon geography ceased to be in the possession of a privileged few; they began to excite the public, and learned societies, who inscribed them upon their programmes, now met together with éclat to diffuse the love of science and establish the groundwork of common studies.

Thus it was at the International Congress of Antwerp, General Heine developed a project of the Interoceanic Canal, suggested by M. de Gogorza. At the Paris Congress in 1875, the same subject received merited honors at several sessions, where I had the honor of presiding, but the documents were still wanting which could reach the bottom of the matter, those in their possession conveying but general ideas. It was then and there decided to convene, as soon as practicable, a special Congress, or rather

an International Jury, empowered to collect and compile all useful documents, and to draw up a definite report, based upon a full knowledge of facts relating to the technical and financial possibilities of the work. This forcible and important resolution had the effect of giving new impulse to explorers, navigators, and projectors, all of whom set their wits to work to furnish for the consideration of the Congress full and accurate plans. As soon as the projected meeting, of which I have already spoken, was known to the public, two companies were formed, whose purpose was to attempt these new explorations

the one to examine Nicaragua, following the old route of Thomé de Gamond and of Blanchet; the other, under the direction of the distinguished General Türr, to explore the south, that is to say, the regions of Darien and Panama, following in the footsteps of Garella, Lacharme, and Selfridge. The three years between 1875 and 1879 teemed with active research and explorations energetically directed. At this time the expeditions ordered by the Government of the United States of America were completed. The capable officers who commanded these expeditions-Collins, Hull, Shufeldt, and, above all, Selfridge and Menocalhad left no portion of the Isthmus unexplored. The documents which they brought back with them must have thrown much light upon the subject and greatly facilitated the task of the jury. When the time arrived and all the documents pertaining to the last expeditions were in my hands, I directed my whole attention to satisfying the desire expressed by the Congress of 1875. In order to convoke an assembly to which a great mission was assigned, I called upon all learned men, civil or naval engineers of both worlds, upon the chambers of commerce, upon the geographical societies, inviting each to appoint their delegates.

Few assemblies have included so many illustrious names as did this great tribunal, formed of the leading representatives of science, statesmanship, and commerce. May 15th, 1879, witnessed at Paris, in the hotel of the Geographical Society, the first of these assemblies, destined to remain famous in the annals of the history of the useful sciences. From the four quarters of the globe were come together distinguished men, of absolute impartiality, of admirable scientific devotion, who, during fifteen days, worked without relaxation, bringing to bear the weight of their names and experience upon a study of equal importance to all. Countries the most diverse figured at the Congress. Mexico took part through Engineer F. de Garay; and China, through the Mandarin Li-ShuChang. The United States were represented