Prof. Royce's Lecture.

Last evening Prof. Royce was greeted by an audience which filled Sever 11 to overflowing. Prof. Royce gave a brief recapitulation of his first lecture and then proceeded to give a sketch of Californian society since the Bear Flag movement. Marshall, who first discovered the gold, was found to be a thoroughly worthless man. The people of the early history of California often descended to a state of semi-barbarism, yet there was always a spirit of manhood and heroism which has brought California to the strength she has today. The miners were allowed to work the mines by the United States government only through sufferance. The idea that the stories of the pioneers are the only references which are valuable is a very incorrect one. One must go to the old newspaper files for the true state of Californian society. It is quite certain that the community was one of irresponsible strangers full of individuality and self-confidence. There were two things which led early California to disorganization; irresponsibility and hatred of foreigners. Cheerfulness and heartiness turned the society into a happy community.

The state of society, however, was very uncivilized. "Simple crimes like murder and theft," when once proved were quickly dealt with. There was a brief period of a wide-spread, well organized society, yet it did not last, for it was not founded on moral instinct which is a necessary foundation of all stable order. The treason of carelessness was the greatest sin of the early Californian, and for it he was obliged to severely atone.

The simplest method of separating the gold from the earth was soon superseded by the "cradle." The requiring men to work together occasioned the system of "partnership" which has become so celebrated in song and story. Some lonely miners made some profit by using a knife in cutting the gold from the crevices of rock where the water of the brooks had washed it. This crevice-mining afforded a very precarious living, and these solitary miners became very dangerous members of society. Very few Indians were hired by the miners. The Brooks party of Eastermens on the way to the mining districts, found little trouble from the Indians or settlers until they reached the Sierras. They tell of entertainments given by the wives and daughters of the miners at the Mormon diggings, which made a very pleasant ending to a day of hard labor. The men, it is said, sometimes took a little too much liquor. They had many unpleasant experiences with "horse theif" Indians and robbers. Every man looked out for himself in those days. Burial places even were hard to obtain.

In 1849 affairs began to grow worse, murder, robbery and brawls increased. The Californian camp of '48 was one of men who had no intention of making California their home and only full of a desire to make money. Although heroism and generosity sometimes prevailed, yet there was no stable system. Upon this fragile framework fell the crowd of "forty miners," and the result, as may be imagined, was most disastrous.