Year: 1870

ring in the Board of Supervisors, and the inaug-
uration of a new reign of honest members.
Shrader and his followers though nightly cast
down and overthrown by the late Municipal
election, did not renquish their pleasant posi-
tions without a final, desperate struggle, and
had not our new champions stood firm, the city
! would have been handed over for another year
to the wolfsh mercy of the plunderers. The
chief apostle of dishonesty made ceveral despair
ing efforts to perpetuate his misrule, by calling
caucuses, talking mildly to the incoming City
Fathers and sending the cohorts of contractors
who do his bidding to exert their supposed in
fuence on the minds of the amateur officials.
But it was all to no purpose. The oil of honesty
would not blend with the waters of roguery, and
when the battle of Armegeddon had been fought
on Monday night, Sh-ader and the rest of the
ring found themselves nicely sandwiched on all
the committees between upright members so
that they are now as powerless for future harm
as their great prototype will be when he is
bound hand and foot during the millennium.


AN APPROACHING FESTIVAL.


While Christmas men and women are prepar-
ing for the celebration of " Holy Chrstmastide, -
our heather sojourners are also engaged in max
ing elaborate preparations for the most import
ant festival that has occurred in their calendar
for ten centuries. Next February will be, ac-
cording to Chinese reckoning, the commence
ment of another thousand years in their record
of time, and the rejocings in consequence will
surpass anything of the kind that we have ever
witnessed in the Celestial line. The festivities
will continue for two weeks during which time
not a solitary John, however poor and dependent,
will lift his hands to work. Nearly six hundred
oc the wealther Chinese sailed on the last
steamer for the Flowery Kingdom in order to
spend the great occasion at home, and several
hundred more will leave on the lst of January.


DIAMOND Discoveries.


The recent discovery of diamond fields in the
Cape of Good Hope has directed the attention OF
our ubiqutous prospectors to the possibility that
precious stones may also he a portion of our
own rich endowment of natural wealth-a pos
sibiity that has been increased by the receipt OF
parcel of rubies garncts and briants from
Arizona where they had been found by some
miners in bed of gravel. Several larger speci-
mems are said to have been thrown away by them
as they did not recognize the gem in the rough.
One of the stones weighing three carats and ac-
cording to the experience of the lapidaries will
be worth $500 when cut. But as Arizona is too
far off and its native Inhabitants too much ad-
dicted to playing unpleasant pronks with trav-
elers' scaps to justify fathers of families in rush
ing in that direction, it may be interesting to
know that there several well authenticated
instances of similar discoveries nearer home.
On the 2lst of October diamond of great brill
lancy was found in the immediate vicinity of
San Rafael, Marin county, while digging we'll
1t embedded in a blueish-yelow clay, ten
feet below the surface, and yalled by jeweer
in the town at $40. | can vouch for the accu-
racy of this fact. Several small diamonds were
also washed out of a claim near Columbia, in
Tuolumne county, three years ago, and Others
from bar dggngs Campo Seco, in Gala
veras. The largest of them did not exceed two
carats With these facts in view it might be
worth while for miners and prospcctors to keep
lookout for precious stones, for it is not i'm
probable that some of them may in times past
have entertained an angel unawares' in the
shape of diamond in the rough


GREAT LAND SUIT.


Another of those intermnabe land suits which
have done so much to disgust purchasers and
retard the progress of the State is now on
trial in one of our Courts, involving in its result
the property and homes of nealy a thousand peo-
MI IN hat I, L
aS the New Potrero, situated on the other side of
the Long bridge, near Mission bay. OF course
the claimant derives his title from Mexican
grant decided to some old Californian family and
of course he only recently discovered that he
was the owner of the grant claimed All the
oldest inhabitants and octogenarian greasers
that could be raked up have been on the stand
giving the jury the benefit of their early remnis
cences, and it will certainly not be their fault
nor the fault of strict adherent to the truth il
the plaintiff does not come by his own. 1t would
have been better for the State if every aged Mex.
lean had suffered the fate of IIaman rather than
to have had these never-endng lawsuits-most
of which are born of perjury and forgery-con.
stantly threatening bona Jfde purchasers with
disposession.


MONEY by LIGHTNING.


The Western Union Telegraph Company in
tends to inaugarate an excellent system of draw.
ing or paying money by telegraph. After this
week any one desirous of remitting small sums
may step into the Company's Office in any part
of the State and by handing the amount to the
clerk together with trihng premium can re.
qure him to advise the operator at any other
station to pay over similar sum to the person
designated. This will be great public accom-
modaton, and the facilities thus furnished will
no doubt be extensively used.


| THE LOWER CALIFORNIA COMPANY,


a corporation which purports to have received
a grant from the Mexican Government of nearly
| the whole peninsula of Lower California is dis