Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-21
A CALIFORNIA MIDAS.
Something in the Line of the Mythical and
Bonanza,


Now it must not be supposed that either
Mrs. Casilear or Rosalind was by any means
ashamed of being Moses Maturin's daugh-
ter They had both dearly loved their
father, though during many childish years
they had seen him quite rarely. Their
mother had died while they were very
young children, and they had been placed
at seminary in San Francisco, where they
became known, in course of time, as the
two young heiresses to colossal wealth. The
lady who presided over the seminary was
quite 10th to receive the little girls when
their father had first presented them for
her future tutelage; perhaps this unwill-
ingness would speedily have ossified into
an outright refusal, had not Moses Mat
urin shown her purseful of tempting
gold-pieces, which he offered as payment
in advance. He was a rather rough
looking young man in those days.
He wore beard as big as Kris Kringle's
though it had in it the chestnut
gloss of youth. His hands were
tanned and horny as any workman's, and
slight wonder, since he had handled the
pick-ax i'll the mining counties for months
at a time. He meant, moreover, to handle
it again. But the years proved very civ
liking to him, for they brought him
wealth in amplest measure. He took
trips East, and one of them even ex-
tended across the Atlantic as far as st.
Petersburg, His little girls were being
very competently educated there at the
San Francisco Seminary, and he knew it.
He had become qualified to judge. The
lady principal of the establishment would
have a thrill of excitement, now, when
she learned that the millionaire, Moses
Maturin, had called. She was inclined to
slip on her best silk gown, nowadays, and
put a bit of tasteful ribbon at her throat.
1t was not at all the same with her as it
had been few years ago. Moses Mat
urin conferred an honor by visiting
her establishment, and when she reflected
that he had never married again, and that
she still wanted three years of fifty, it is
possible that an ambitious dream may
have found its way into this futtered
school-mistress' heart. He always contin-
ued to be what fastidious people called
" common" The acquisitions of syntdx
him, and he had finally abandoned trying
to discover their lost clue People at
one time talked of his millions as Of other
mems thousands. The rough, quaint,
shrewd sayings of Nose Maturin "
were often on the lips of both friends and
foes. But he had not many of the latter
His chief foe was his own inveterate,
speculative folly. There were years
when he literally did not know what to
do with his money. His luck suggested
a kind of variation on the hackneyed
Midas legend. 1t was not so much as if
everything he touched turned into gold;
il was rather as if he touched nothing
which did not prove to have gold some
where in or near it. But four or five of
his mines were silver ones and in the
Nevada country. These for months at
time he scarcely regarded; their product
was inconsiderable compared with others
whence the yellow metal flowed to him in
almost fabulous bounty But, as it proved,
these silver mines were afterward his
monetary salvation. Misfortunes came
marching in a grim phalanx across the
fair field of this mans life. Lawsuits ex-
hausted leads, calamities to more than a
single body of miners, accusations of I'M
serupulous legislative bribery-such were
few of the forms by which the Proteus of
disaster chose to declare himself Maturin
bore up against it all stoutly enough
for many months. At length, however,
when arrived the treachery and dis
honesty Of men whom he had lifted al
most from the gutter and placed in en-
viable opulence, he quailed and finched.
His losses had been tremendous,
though he still hoped that certain de-
cision of the Courts would refill his
Golfers with the millions that he asserted
to have been foully stolen thence by the
most villainous of ..bandits.-From "A De
moralizing Marriage in Woman, for March