ever they met. If anyone inquired who they were, they answered
as their mother had taught them: "We are the children of Mr. and Mrs.
George Donner." But they added something which they had learned since.
It was: "And our parents are dead."

C.F. McGLASHAN,
in _History of the Donner Party._

JUNE 28.

This cart was gaily decorated with a canopy which was in fact an
exquisitely embroidered silken bedspread. The background was of
grass-green silk, embroidered over the entire field with brightest red
and yellow, pink and white roses, with intertwining leaves and stems,
making the old _carreta_ appear to be a real rose-bower blooming
along the King's Highway. From the edges hung a rich, deep, silken
knotted fringe. Beneath the heavy fringe again hung lace curtains.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._

A half-naked beggar will find a dirty ribbon out of an ash-barrel to
ornament himself, if he happens to be a she. * * * We women are such
striking guys without our first little aids to the ugly.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._

JUNE 29.

During this unsettled period (1849), the "judge of first instance," or
alcalde, sat each day in the little school-room on the plaza of San
Francisco, trying cases, and rendering that speedy justice that was
then more desirable than exact justice, since men's time, in those
early days of 1849, was worth from sixteen dollars to one hundred
dollars per day. The judge listened to brief arguments, announced his
decision, took his fees, and called up another case; hardly once in a
hundred trials was there any thought of an appeal to the Governor at
Monterey.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in _Mining-Camps._

JUNE 30.

Like the senators Cineas found at Rome, they were an assembly of
kings, above law, who dealt out justice fresh and evenly balanced as
from the hand of the eternal. In all the uprisings in California there
has never been manifested any particular penchant on the part of the
people for catching and hanging criminals. They do not like it.
Naturally the law detests vigilance because vigilance is a standing
reproach to law. Let the law look to it and do its duty.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Popular Tribunals._

AMONG THE MARIPOSA BIG TREES.

Older than man or beast or bird,
Ancient when God first spake and Adam heard--
We gaze with souls profoundly stirred
And plead for one revealing word.
But the great tre