Year: 1861




Having recently come into
this part of Butte county and visited some of
its mining towns, and being moved by spirit
of candor and. as q Ching Foo would say,
communicativeness, have resolved to scrib-
BILE few lines to inform you of what is going
on hereabouts, and for the edifcation of certain
hombres in this very prosperous, enterprising,
and, might say, magnificent locality bearing
the very CLASSICAL name as above.


Dogtown has the reputation of being fast
place, but that word fails of force and express
sion when applied to the boys" who give
tone to its society. They can boast of one
very prominent feature which entities them to
honorable mention here-which is: their love
of, and capacity for the ardent" In this
respect, they can discount and give twenty-fv
points in the game to any other community in
the State-other things being equal-and lay
out old Bacchus himself


| You heard of the famous ride on railroad
given by the boys, gratis, to talented disci-
pie of Esculapius, some time since, and also of
the raising of the Bear flag whereupon. at the
crack of the gun, certain hombres fell over and
died without a struggle" Another surpri-
sing little affair came off here the other day,
which might be called an immense case Of
affection, wherein one of the boys was chief
actor it being no less an event than the mar
riage of a prominent young bachelor of the
genus denominated as fast" He being q
young man Just at that tender age when one is
supposed to have hankering after green fields
crnolne and ck-tails, whose heart had not
become so hardened by time and circumstanc
es as to be proof against the gentle passions !;
the darts of Cupid readily found lodgment
therein, and he fell a victim to crinoline. As
some poet has said,-


'Tis an hereditary weakness of the human heart
Father Adam fell victim to womanly art


But alas, that our genial friend, with all his
talents, wit, and gallantry, should be cut down
in the prime of manhood, and depart from the
sphere of bachelordom With several big
sighs and many small regrets, we bid him
adieu his former good qualities are gone, alb
sorbed, encompassed; no more will he shine in
his splendor, he has weakened to an animate
bundle Of crinoline-


Pressed it to his heart, and vowed it to be


His star of hope DER life's rough sea.


Gallant Jeems,r once more, farewell thou
art gone


The magic mysteries of crinoline to explore,
/ Where many craft has stranded before.


The other day happened to visit the mi
ming town on Butte Creek known as Heltown,
and I might remark that the name is very ap-
propriate, and highly suggestive of the place
whereat its denizens will bring up when their
earthly career shall have ended. A law suit
was going on Of much interest being a trial Of
the rights of property, before Constable R,
of Dogtown. | was much amused at the re-
marks of the legal gents employed in the suit,
also Of the latter place. at the close of his
argument, one of the counsel remarked, with
vast amount of pathos and gravity, that he
" despsed and would not descend to quibblng,
but stood upon the dignity Of has profession as
a Ldryer, and would stake his legal reputation
on the correctness of his position in regard to
the point of law under controversy" The
other thought 9" the attempts of the counsel on
the other side to bamboozle the youthful court,
were supremely ridiculous"


The Forks of Butte is situated nine miles
above Helltown, at the junction of Main Butte
and the West Branch Itappears to be sort
of a onehorse mining locality its chief char
acteristics are Digger squaws, ragged miners,
grub diggings, bean poker and gin-this last
mentioned article has to be kept in glass bot
/ ties; it will eat through wooden cask in ff-
teen minutes. Excuse me, like TO forgot, it
has another prominent feature, it is prolific of
literary cusses.' One, former correspon-
dent Of the RECORD, and enthusiastic Douglas
ite, but believe not now a resident of this
place, had the half of his coat tail torn off the
night before election, in squatter sovereign
AZ" iSuib u, was 81 ubiOi 90 W iOeC
the other half on election day, for challenging
Breckenridge vote. We pass this presumptu-
Gus young fellow with word of friendly ad
vice, which is, that Nature has better qualified
him for the use of the pick than the pen. The
Forks can also boast of poet, lean-sided
pedantic cuss. Grub dlggings appear to be a
powerful incentive to his Pegasus, which, while
he is rolling the boulders, mounts with him far
above things terrestrial, into the sublime and
fowery realms of poetical fancy. But dare
not say more on this subject, for fear the dis
tinguished lterat of Butte Creek will pene-
trate my incog and raise me out"


You are aware that Dogtown is the second
place, in population, in Butte county it is
rapidly improving, and is destined, ere long, to
be an important place this end of the coun-
ty is developing itself


The Barret claim has again commenced
yielding, it turned out the other day ten
pound lump.


2. 81 learn, upon further inquiry, that
said lump is not gold, but that its joint pro-
prietors (Mr and Mrs b. consider it far more
valuable S. A. M.