the entire
purchase was necessary, the auctioneer claimed the rig lit to cliarge the same as if 132 different deeds had been drawn up. This exorbitant demand the purchaser refused to pay and the lots were resold by the commissioners' ao;ents.
Thus matters progressed. From a savage wilder- ness there soon emerged a settled community ; fortunes were made and lost ; cities arose like magic and were destroyed by fire or flood in a breath ; one day the noisy industry of a busy population echoed through the hills and ravines, and the next all was deserted as if smitten by the plague ; speculative excess, gamb- ling, and debauchery ran riot, while decency stood by helpless to restrain. Unworthy and unprincipled men usurped the highest offices, and by their nefari- ous schemes filled their pockets and those of their abettors with the ill-gotten gains of pilfering and dis- honesty, and all this time the press was either silent through fear of personal injury, or basely sold itself to uphold iniquity. Then came a change for the better. Vice was compelled to retire from public gaze; the gambler and the harlot were no longer allowed to ply their trades on the most public thoroughfares in the broad light of open day, and the bench became in a measure purified.
Yet public and private enterprises of a substantial and permanent character were projected and carried out in greater numbers and more rapidly than hith- erto. Formerly, such only were attempted as would immediately yield a rich reward, and these were ac- complished with the least possible expense, and in such a manner as to last only for the time being. Tents, huts, and log-cabins were the homes of the miner, a raft was his ferry-boat, and a scratch upon the hillside his water-ditch. The towns and cities were of mush- room growth, merchants cooked and slept in their split-board stores, and guarded their goods and treas- ures from thieves and fires. Farmino- life was no bet- ter, and exhibited few evidences of that spirit of
