great far west, make
no distinctions as to sex in apportioning their salaries for
school work, and this, coupled with their numerous co-educational
universities and normal schools, has given them an army of lady
teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world.

The county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote,
and the women take to the stump-speaking and the usual kissing of
voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water. Result,--the
ladies secure the political plums, and the men are rapidly being
driven to manual labor, their natural sphere of action, though
not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable. These
ex-men-superintendents buttonhole you at every turn, reciting the
outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors.

At an election in a California town, one of these men sufferers,
mistaking me for a voter, took me by a button of my coat, and poured
forth a tale of woe so long that, unable to endure it longer, I cut
off the button and fled. He did not notice my departure, and two hours
later, there he was holding on to the button, all alone, gesticulating
frantically, and beseeching me to vote for him to save his wife and
ten children from starvation. For aught I know, he has not missed me
to this day; but is still sounding forth his wild appeals.

Should I describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this
wonderland, I should exhaust time and trench upon eternity. Suffice it
to state that I returned to 'Frisco, fought a successful dictionary
battle there, formed the acquaintance of many distinguished men, among
them the great Irving Scott, who built the famous battleship Oregon.
He was president of the city school-board, head of the vast Union Iron
Works, and besides performing many herculean labors, was stumping the
state nightly in favor of the election of William McKinley to the
presidency of the United States.

I was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which
seemed to render life almost unendurable in hovel and palace. I could
get no rest day or night in many parts of the state, on account of the
savage attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters, more terrible
than an army with Gatling guns.

Crossing the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, I was
for a time enchanted with Highland Park, Oakland. In front, through a
vista of Eucalyptus, oak and elm trees, appear the glistening waters
of th