m you that, at the time it was built,
everything had to be packed from Marysville at a cost of forty cents a
pound. Compare this with the price of freight on the railroads at home,
and you will easily make an estimate of the immense outlay of money
necessary to collect the materials for such an undertaking at Rich Bar.
It was built by a company of gamblers as a residence for two of those
unfortunates who make a trade--a thing of barter--of the holiest
passion, when sanctified by _love_, that ever thrills the wayward heart
of poor humanity. To the lasting honor of _miners_ be it written, the
_speculation_ proved a decided failure. Yes! these thousand men, many
of whom had been for years absent from the softening amenities of
female society, and the sweet restraining influences of pure
womanhood,--these husbands of fair young wives kneeling daily at the
altars of their holy homes to pray for their far-off ones,--these sons
of gray-haired mothers, majestic in their sanctified old age,--these
brothers of virginal sisters, white and saintlike as the lilies of
their own gardens,--looked only with contempt or pity on these, oh! so
earnestly to be compassionated creatures. These unhappy members of a
class, to one of which the tenderest words that Jesus ever spake were
uttered, left in a few weeks, absolutely driven away by public opinion.
The disappointed gamblers sold the house to its present proprietor for
a few hundred dollars.

Mr. B., the landlord of the Empire, was a Western farmer who with his
wife crossed the plains about two years ago. Immediately on his arrival
he settled at a mining station, where he remained until last spring,
when he removed to Rich Bar. Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking
woman, about twenty-five years of age. She is an example of the
terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains, hers
having become, through exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent
yellow, anything but becoming. I will give you a key to her character,
which will exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a
nursing babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two
other children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!
When I arrived she was cooking supper for some half a dozen people,
while her really pretty boy, who lay kicking furiously in his
champagne-basket cradle, and screaming with a six-months-old-baby
power, had, that day, completed just two weeks of his ear