written from his own dictation by Thomas D. Bonner, a justice of the
peace in Butte County in 1852. His name is preserved in "Beckwourth
Pass." He first entered this pass probably in the spring of the year
1851, although 1850 is the year given in his Life. The Western Pacific
Railroad utilizes the pass for its tracks entering California, and
through it came the pioneers of whom Shirley has much to say in Letter
the Twenty-second.

Among punishments for thefts, the Doctor, on page 351, speaks of a
"decidedly barbarous case of hanging" for that offense. It is referred
to here for the reason that in the sequel of the hanging Bret Harte
found more than a suggestion for his finale of The Outcasts of Poker
Flat. Both are reprinted here for the purpose of comparison. Shirley
says (post, p. 157),--

The body of the criminal was allowed to hang for some hours after
the execution. It had commenced storming in the earlier part of the
evening, and when those whose business it was to inter the remains
arrived at the spot, they found them enwrapped in a soft white
shroud of feathery snowflakes, as if pitying nature had tried to
hide from the offended face of Heaven the cruel deed which her
mountain-children had committed.

The finale of The Outcasts of Poker Flat follows, in part, with no
other changes than those of punctuation and capitalization.

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when
voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when
pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could
scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them,
which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat
recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each
other's arms. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest
pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a
bowie-knife.... And pulseless and cold, with a derringer by his
side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life,
beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the
weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

The phrase, "though still calm as in life," in the last sentence of the
extract immediately preceding, is one that would seem to invite the
challenge of a proof-reader. It is passed without further notice.

Dr. Royce is not at his best in reviewing Letter the Nineteenth. The
su