108,235

105,813

647

625

591

493

Balance in Treasury June 30, 1879..

Grand total..

1,498,450 55 $9,189,282 65

The tax levy for the 30th fiscal year (ending June 30, 1879) was, for the general fund (from which is paid the current expenses of the State government), $1,320,000, or a rate of 25.6 cents on each $100 valuation of property, which was the smallest tax levied for said current expenes since the year 1871; and yet, at the end of said year, June 30, 1879, there was in the general fund a balance of over $384,000. The amount levied for the general fund for the 31st fiscal year, commencing July 1, 1879, is $1,450,000, or a rate of 30 cents on each $100 valuation of property. This is the smallest levy for general purposes since the year 1871, except that of 1878-79. The rate for said general fund for the 31st fiscal year is 4.4 cents on each $100 greater than it was for the preceding year; the most of this increase is due to the fact that the assessment roll upon which the tax was levied is less by nearly $37,000,000 in 1879-'80 than it was in 1878 79. There has been a greater amount of fees of office and commissions paid into the State Treasury by the Harbor Commissioners, Surveyor-General, Secretary of State, and Clerk of the Supreme Court during the last three years and a half than was paid in during the same length of time by their predecessors, and the taxes have been more closely and cheaply collected than ever before. There has been a material reduction in the running expenses of the State government during the past three and a half years, and the financial condition of the State is sound and healthy. The State also holds a claim against the United States Government of $241,625 for sums advanced in the suppression of Indian hostilities.

The progress of the public schools of the State during the last twenty-five years has been very rapid. In 1855 the State had but 227 schools, with an attendance of 13,000, and 26,077 census children. In 1865 it had 947 schools, with an attendance of 50,089, and 95,067 census children. In 1875 it had 2,190 schools, with 130,930 scholars in attendance, and 171,563 census children. In 1879 it had 2,743 schools, with an attendance of 144,806, and 216,404 census children. In 1855 teachers were paid $181,906; in 1879, $2,285,732.39. Up to the present time the people of California have devoted to the cause of public education for pub

Total census children between 5 and 17... 216,404
Increase over 1877........
16,887

White children under five years, 85,870; average number of census children belonging to public schools, 105,837; average daily attendance, 98,468. From July 1, 1878, to June 30, 1879, 144,806 were enrolled in the public schools, while the average number belonging, the actual pupils of the schools, were 105,837, and only 98,468 were in daily attendance during the whole time school was maintained. Census children attending private schools at any time during school year, 15,432; percentage of census children enrolled in public schools, 66.91; percentage in private schools, 7·04; percentage attending no schools, 26.05; per cent. of children of native-born parents, 46·15; per cent. of children who had one foreign parent, 12.68; per cent. of children who are of foreign parents, 41-17; school districts, 1,999; increase over 1877, 171; first-grade schools, 999; increase, 85; second grade, 1,081; increase, 98; third grade, 663; increase, 36. Total number of schools, 2,743; increase, 258. By the first grade are meant high, grammar, and first-grade schools; by second grade are meant interme diate and third grade; and by third grade are meant primary and third-grade schools. Num ber enrolled in high schools or the advanced grade, 4,871; number enrolled in grammar o first-grade schools, 20,197; number enrolled in intermediate or second-grade schools, 38,693 number enrolled in primary or third-grad schools, 91,788; number of male teachers, 1, 236; number of female teachers, 2,217; aver age monthly salary paid male teachers, $82.19 average paid female teachers, $66.37; decreas in monthly salary paid male teachers, com pared with 1877, $1.65; decrease in monthl salary paid female teachers, compared wit 1877, $3.31; new schoolhouses erected, 122 institutes held, 34; cost of institutes, $2,988.2 Total receipts of the school department fro all sources, State and county apportionment city and district taxes, etc., for 1878, $3,820 661.26; for 1879, $3,653,798.96; State appo tionments per census child-1878, $7.67; 187! $6.60; decrease since 1877, 77 cents; count apportionments per census child-1878, $3.54 1879, $3.59; total receipts of all kinds per cer sus child-1878, $18.59; 1879, $16.84; d crease since 1877, $1.20.

The expenditures for teachers' salaries, scho libraries, school apparatus, rents, repairs, etc have been as follows:

$3,716,984

830,346

482,559

146,112

22,045

810,899

18,610

2,266,186

$7,288,240

Deducting these items of legitimate expenditures from the net total receipts, we have the following as the net income for that year:

This amount was too small to justify the usual April dividend, and so it was passed. This balance is subject to a further deduction of $1,200,000 under an act of Congress known as the Thurman act. Early in 1878 Senator Thurman of Ohio introduced and was instrumental in the passage of a bill by Congress which compels the Union and Central Pacific Railroad Companies to pay 25 per cent. of their annual net earnings, including the whole of the compensation due them for services rendered to the Government, to the Treasurer of the United States, to be by him applied partly in payment of the accrued interest upon the bonds issued by the Government to the two companies, and partly to the establishment of a sinking fund in the United States Treasury for the final payment of the Company's bonded indebtedness. The companies contested the law in the courts, claiming that it was uncon stitutional. The decision rendered by the Supreme Court early in 1879 was not unanimous, three judges dissenting from the opinion, but it probably settles the question.

The report of the Central Pacific Railroad Company for 1877 shows the following indebt

edness to the United States for bonds:

These bonds were issued under the acts o July 1, 1862, and July 2, 1864. They all bear 6 per cent. interest, and are payable thirty years from date. Part of them are therefore payable July 1, 1892, and the remainder July 2, 1894. The annual interest on these bonds aggregates $3,877,511, and is payable in January and July. Thus far the interest has been paid by the United States. As an offset, the compensation that should have been paid to the held by the Government. companies for carrying the mails has been with

According to the surveys which have been made, the area of the State is 100,500,000 acres, which is divided as follows: Agricultural and mineral lands surveyed to June Agricultural and mineral lands unsurveyed.. Private grants surveyed to June 30, 1879. Mission Church property.. Pueblo lands..

30, 1879.....

Private grants unsurveyed..

Indian and military reservations.
Lakes, islands, bays, and navigable rivers..
Swamp and overflowed lands surveyed....
Swamp and overflowed lands unsurveyed..

Salt-marsh and tide-lands around San Francisco
Bay..

Salt-marsh and tide-lands around Humboldt Bay.

Aggregate area......................

49,054,114

89,065,654

8,459,694

40,707 188,749

15,000

818,631

1,531,700

1,610,087

110,714

100,000 5,000

.... 100,500,000

The exports of wool for the six months ending June 30, 1879, were 23,291,500 lbs. The spring clip was under the average of the previous five years. That for 1871-'73 was from 12,600,000 to 14,600,000 lbs.; in 1874, it was 19,400,000 lbs.; in 1875, 23,600,000 lbs.; in 1876-'77 there was an average of 28,000,000 lbs.; in 1878 the crop fell off to 18,800,000 lbs.; and in 1879 it was 20,651,000 lbs.

The export of wheat and flour from San Francisco during the eleven months ending May 31, 1879, was as follows:

MONTHS.

July, 1878........

August.

September.

October.

November.

58,800

964,600

December..

January, 1879

February..

March

April... May

Totals...

$15,029,054 $17,599,770

The annual interest on the bonds held by the Central and Western Pacific is $1,671,341, which hereafter must be annually paid over to the Treasurer of the United States, less the amount reserved for carrying the mails. This decision of the U. S. Supreme Court is noticed above.

The amount of bonds issued by the United States to Pacific Railroads is as follows:

Including flour reduced to wheat, there was cleared over 31,000 tons of wheat in the month of May, making the total for eleven months ending on May 31st, 556,675 tons of 2,000 lbs. The month of June scarcely increased the total to 575,000 tons. More than 270 ships and barks were dispatched loaded with this export.

The climate of the State is most admirable for the success of grain-crops. While farmers in other parts of the world are in constant fear of rain during haying and harvest, and often lose the work of an entire year during one storm, the California farmer has nothing to fear from this source. He has from April to October almost entirely exempt from storms of any kind, in which to secure all his crops. Even the dews do not fall to bleach his hay, and his wheat may lie in the field in the bundle or bunch or stack, or even in the sack, without damage from rain. No time is lost from showers or winds, or other natural causes, but the work begun in May is continuously and constantly pushed without interruption all through that month and June and July, August and September. In the Eastern States it costs much more to cut and secure grain than it does in California, because of the advantages secured by its favorable climate. There they can cut the grain with the header, taking only the heads, which are elevated into an attendant wagon with a capacious box, and deposited directly into the hopper of the machine to be immediately threshed, or into a pile to remain in bulk till a convenient time for threshing it.

The lumber trade of the State has its chief center at San Francisco. The hard woods used for wheelwright purposes, cabinet-work, veneering, and ornamental work are imported, with the exception of California laurel or myrtle, mountain mahogany, maple, and alder. The staple lumber, used for house- and ship-building, street and dock work, fencing, boxing, and the like, is obtained on the coast within the limits of the State and the neighboring forests of Oregon and Washington. The chief varieties of staple lumber obtained on the coast are sugar-pine, white cedar, redwood, spruce, Oregon pine or fir, and yellow pine, named in the order of their commercial value. White or sugar-pine comes from the Sierra; white cedar from Port Orford north to Coos Bay, exclusively; fir or Oregon pine from Puget Sound and many sections of Oregon, or more particularly from Coos Bay north; spruce from Coos Bay, Umpqua, Shoalwater Bay, and the coast of Oregon, generally; redwood, from the great redwood region of the California Coast Range. Oregon pine or fir, known commercially as "Oregon," is used in Pacific coast ship-building almost exclusively, and for the rafters, beams, scantlings, furring, flooring, and stepping of houses, for piles, planking, and side walking, and for nearly all purposes where lateral strain is an essential, and comparative inexpensiveness desirable. Redwood is used altogether for the outside construction of frame houses, in the form of rustic siding, batting, and shingles, and in inside finish, as tongue and groove" for ceiling, wainscoting, and the like, and for cornices and moldings. For all purposes where durability is not affected by friction or strain, redwood is the most durable

Home consumption-in which are included shipments made to the interior, and from San Francisco to foreign ports-was highest in the centennial year, 1876; falling off in the years 1877 and 1878 about thirty-seven million feet.

The shipment of fruit to the Eastern cities has become quite extensive. Its profitableness or unprofitableness has depended chiefly on the carefulness with which the requirements of success have been heeded. This has been seen in those who have selected the kinds of fruit that would bear shipping the best; those who have taken the most pains in assorting the fruit to be shipped; those who have boxed with the most care; those who have packed in the cars so as to secure the greatest circulation of air through and between the boxes; those who have shipped in cars attached to the express and passenger trains, and thus secured the quickest transit. Pears and plums have been found the best fruits to ship, and of pears the Bartlett has proved a good shipper and the most profitable to send to the Eastern market. This pear can be picked in California and placed on the markets in the East before any other kinds of fruit are plentiful there, and consequently is insured a good demand and good prices. Plums are also a profitable kind of fruit to ship. They stand the voyage well, and meet the markets in a good time for good prices. Peanuts are grown largely in the State on sandy river-bottoms, and some years ago they proved a very profitable crop, but the markets are now liable to be overcrowded. Still they yield so well that even at a small price there is room for some profit. It takes from one bushel to a bushel and a half of good seed to plant an acre. seed must be fresh, plump, and of a good bright color. If the rows are put three feet apart, and the hills eighteen inches in the row, the best satisfaction will be given.

The

A most important legal case came before the State courts. It related to the injury done to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys by the debris from the mines. From surveys made by the State Engineer it has been ascertained

that over 18,000 acres of valley-land on the Yuba-land that was once the finest bottom

land in the State-have been utterly destroyed and buried beneath the mining débris, so that now this vast area has been transformed into a desert of sand and slickings, alternating with impenetrable jungles of willow swamp. Probably as much if not more of equally good land has been similarly destroyed on Bear River. Although these lands have been exposed to sunshine and rain for years, they produce not a blade of grass-nothing but willows and kindred semi-aquatic plants, that derive their nourishment chiefly from the stratum of water percolating underneath the surface, and not from the soil itself. From the beginning of hydraulic mining to the present time over 150,000,000 cubic yards of solid material have passed the foot-hills, and have been deposited on the bottom-lands of the Yuba and into the waters of the Feather and Sacramento Rivers, the Bays of Suisun and San Pablo, and finally into the Bay of San Francisco. Such a mass deposited on a farm of 160 acres would cover it to a depth of 581 feet; or, if spread evenly, one foot in depth, would cover 93,000 acres, or 145 square miles of land, and absolutely destroy it for agricultural or any other purpose. The bed of the Yuba at Marysville is now filled up to the level of the streets of that city, where prior to the era of hydraulic mining there was a well-defined channel of clear water from 20 to 25 feet in depth. The Feather and Sacramento Rivers have shoaled in a lesser degree, but still sufficiently to almost destroy their usefulness as a highway of commerce. The suit is between farmers and miners, and in the lower court an injunction was obtained against the latter. In the Supreme Court the merits of the case were passed over, and it was decided that there was a misjoining of the defendants. Thus far only has it advanced.

An ordinance of the city and county of San Francisco provided that every male person imprisoned in the county jail, under the judg. ment of any court, should have "the hair of his head cut or clipped to a uniform length of one inch from the scalp thereof." The case of Ho Ah How vs. Matthew Nunan, involving the validity of the ordinance, was decided by Justice Field in the U. S. Circuit Court. The complaint was filed to recover $10,000 damages, and came before the Court on the plaintiff's demurrer to the defendant's plea of justification. Justice Field said:

It appears that in April, 1876, the Legislature of California passed an act "concerning lodging-houses and sleeping- apartments within the limits of incor,porated cities," declaring, among other things, that any person found sleeping or lodging in a room or an apartment containing less than 500 cubic feet of space in the clear for each person occupying it, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars nor more than fifty dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail, or by both such fine and imprisonment. (Laws, sessions of 1875-'76.) Under this act the plain

tiff in April, 1878, was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of ten dollars, or in default of such payment to be imprisoned five days in the county jail. Failing to pay the fine, he was imprisoned. The defendant, as sheriff of the city and county, had charge of the jail, and during the imprisonment of the plaintiff cut off his queue as alleged. The complaint avers that it is the custom of Chinamen to shave the hair from the front of the head, and to wear the remainder of it braided into a queue; that the deprivation of the queue is regarded by them as a mark of disgrace, and is attended, according to their religious faith, with misfortune and suffering after death; that the defendant knew of this custom and religious faith of the Chinese, and knew also that the plaintiff venerated the custom and held the faith, yet, in disregard of his rights, inflicted the injury complained of; and that the plaintiff has in consequence of it suffered great mental anguish, been disgraced in the eyes of his friends and relatives, and ostracized from association with his countrymen and that hence he has been damaged to the amount of $10,000.

Two defenses to the action are set up by the defendant; the second one being a justification of his conduct under an ordinance of the city and county of San Francisco. It is upon the sufficiency of the latter defense that the case is before us. The ordinance referred to was passed on the 14th of June, 1876, and it declared that every male person imprisoned in the county jail, under the judginent of any court having jurisdiction in criminal cases in the city and county, shall immediately upon his arrival at the jail have the hair of his head "cut or clipped to a uniform length duty of the sheriff to have this provision enforced. of one inch from the scalp thereof," and it is made the Under this ordinance the defendant cut off the queue of the plaintiff.

The validity of this ordinance is denied by the plaintiff on two grounds: 1. That it exceeds the authority of the Board of Supervisors, the body in which the legislative power of the city and county is vested; and, 2. That it is special legislation imposing a degrading and cruel punishment upon a class of persons who are entitled, alike with all other persons within the jurisdiction of the United States, to the equal protection of the laws. We are of the opinion that both these positions are well taken.

The cutting off the hair of every male person within an inch of his scalp, on his arrival at the jail, was not intended and can not be maintained as a measure of discipline or as a sanitary regulation. The act has no tendency to promote either discipline or health. The close cutting of the hair which is practiced upon felons at the State Penitentiary, like clothing them in striped pants, is to distinguish them from others, and thus facilitate their capture in case of escape. They are measures of precaution. Nothing of the persons confined in a county jail for simple misdekind is practiced or would be tolerated with respect to meanors, most of which are not of a very grave character. The plaintiff in this case, who had the option of paying a fine of ten dollars, or of imprisonment for five days, required no such clipping of his hair for the purpose of discipline or detention. It was done designedly to add torture to his confinement.

But even if the proceeding could be regarded as a measure of discipline or as a sanitary regulation, the conclusion would not help the defendant, for the Board of Supervisors had no authority to prescribe the discipline to which persons convicted under the laws of the State should be subjected, or to determine what special sanitary regulations should be enforced with respect to their persons. That is a matter which the Legislature had not seen fit to intrust to the wisdom and judgment of that body. A discipline to which disgrace is attached, and which is not enforced as a means of security against the escape of the prisoner, but merely to give torture to his confinement or to aggravate its severity, can only be regarded as a punishment additional to that imposed by the sentence. If inflicted in consequence of the sentence, it is punish