having a practice as a lawyer in Fresco* of ten
thousand dollars a year, for that? I guess not!"

* A common name on the Pacific coast for San
Francisco.

All members of these legislatures are paid,
and get, also, a certain mileage, or travelling
expenses, from their homes to the seat of
government. This recompense, or per diem,
as they call it, varies from about ten dollars to
fifteen dollars a day, and is generally paid in
the Pacific states in gold. The mileage is
about twenty-five cents a mile. Now this to a
Congressman travelling from Washington Territory,
Idaho, Oregon, or California, comes up to
a very round sum, and, indeed, is looked upon
as their principal pay, always exclusive of the
little "stealings" formerly mentioned. The
local legislatures are limited by the state
constitution to a sitting of so many days (and it
would be well if the British colonial ones were
under the same rule, for their unpaid twaddle
is endless), and, of course, their pay only
extends over that period. Sometimes they will
finish their work in a much less time than the
law allows for their sitting, but they have no
notion of rising while their pay is going on.
When not engaged in the ante-rooms of the
senate hall in playing "monte," "cut-throat
poker," "encre," or "seven up," they can pass
the time in introducing "bogus," or sham bills,
generally a divorce for some of their own number,
or a rule to show why another should not
change his name, the wit and decency of which,
I am told, are very much in the style of an
institution once presided over in London by
Chief Baron Nicholson. When Oregon was
poor and humble, her rough names for her
rivers and towns were good enough for them,
but when she got rich a bill was gravely introduced
to change these names. "Rogue river"
was to be called " Gold river," gold just then
being found on its banks, and so forth. It
would probably have passed, had not another
supplemental bill been introduced, which
provided that "Jump- off- Joe" † should be called
"Walk-along-Joseph;" that "Greaser's Camp"
should be called "The Halls of Montezuma;"
that " Shirt Tail Bar" should be styled " Corazza
Beach," and so on. This fairly laughed the
whole proposal out of court; though, indeed, on
the official map an attempt was made to keep
up some of these elegant appellations, and to
Indianise the more outrageous of the names.
In the way of legislative joking, it is a well-known
fact that when a bill was introduced
into the Georgia legislature to lay a tax of ten
dollars a head upon all donkeys, a jocular
member proposed to amend it so as to include
"lawyers and doctors," which amendment was
passed amid loud applause. Various attempts
have been made to repeal the clause, but in
vain, and to this day a tax of ten dollars is
levied upon " all jackasses, lawyers, and
doctors!"

† A place in Southern Oregon.

In the Far West, as elsewhere, there are
legislators who are not too much in earnest. I
recommend to some of our present candidates
for British suffrages the following noble close
to a Far Western election address: "Gentlemen,"
said the candidate, after having given
his sentiments on the "constitootion," the
"Monroe doctrine," and such like topics,
"gentlemen," and he put his hand on the
region of his heart, "these are my sentiments—
the sentiments, gentlemen, of a honest man—
ay, a honest politician, but, gentlemen and
fellow citizens, ef they don't suit you, they ken
be altered!"

To appear a "plain sort of a man" on these
electioneering tours is quite as necessary as the
Old World baby kissing and shaking hands
with the washed men provided by your agent are
with us. I know a Western senator who keeps
what he calls his stumping suit—hodden grey,
well worn, but whole; shoes patched, but
brightly polished; a shirt spotlessly clean, but
frayed at the edges of the seams; and a hat
which has seen better days, but in its well-brushed
condition quite keeps up the air its
owner is striving to assume—humble but
honest. After a campaign is over, the suit is
carefully put aside until another election in
which its owner is interested. The worthy
senator (who is rather a dandy than otherwise)
has filled every office from governor to
"Hog-reave," and considers that his suit of
Humble but Honest won him many a vote.
"Money would'nt buy it," he told me; "it
ain't for sale now how."

It is commonly supposed that General
Fremont lost his election out West by dividing his
hair down the middle. The Honourable Samuel
M. has often assured me that on his first
candidature for office in Oregon territory, certain of
the baser sort "voted agin' him 'cause of his
puttin' on airs" in respect of wearing a white
shirt, or, as they irreverently styled it, a " boiled
rag."

I have put the State in the Far West before
the Church; for the Church there is of the
future, although every place is not like
Josephine county, where I was told, with a sort of
depraved pride, "There a'nt nary preacher nor
meetin' house in this yer county, cap'n."

In other places, where the preacher gets a
footing, it is sometimes easier to get a "meetin'
house" full than to get wherewith to support
the labourer who is nowhere in the world more
"worthy of his hire." A preacher in a frontier
settlement had been collecting money for
some church object. There were still some
twenty dollars wanting, and after vain efforts to
make up the deficiency, he plainly intimated,
as he locked the church-door one day after
service, that he intended to have that said twenty
dollars before any of them left the house. At
the same time he set the example by tossing
five dollars on the table. Another put down a
dollar, another a quarter of a dollar, a fourth
half a dollar, and so on. The parson read out
every now and then the state of the funds:
"Thar's seven and a half, my friends." "Thar's