Prof. Royce's Lecture.

Last night a large audience, considering the disagreeable weather, assembled in Sever 11 to hear the fourth and last of Dr. Royce's very interesting series of lectures on early California history. The cause of the troubles which at first were the plague of the state was the irresponsible spirit which pervaded all classes. The early political life of the state was influenced largely by the presence of Southern politicians, so that finally the Democratic party was in the ascendant. The American treatment of the natives was throughout cruel and unjust. They called them bad names and tried every possible means to make them feel that they were as degraded as they were painted. The course of social conservatism was advanced by the very existence of political sin, because the personal ambitions of various leaders were pitted against each other and the result was often not so very bad. The progress of San Francisco was identical with that of the whole state. In 1848 it was a little village of four or five hundred inhabitants. In five years it became a city of 25,000 population. Tents were not comfortable, and rude houses of canvas and pine were rapidly built. The Parker House, the leading hotel, a frame building, brought over $60,000 per year rent. The annual rental of this city of rags was said to be $12,000,000. The population was then 12,000!

But rags would burn and so the San Franciscans found out. The fire of May 4, 1851, destroyed $7,000,000 worth of property, and was called the great fire. For lack of water the engines stood by as silent evidence of the city's official disapproval of fires. Thousands of people were left homeless. In 1851 and 1856 were formed the two famous vigilance committees. The committee of 1856 was highly organized. The committee of '51 had something of the form of an outburst of popular feeling. In closing, the lecturer said he could not help drawing a lesson from this early history of California, a lesson of the dangers which threaten a Republican form of government. Every step an individual makes away from our social organism is a losing and ruinous one.