election the boys voted themselves a banquet. A champagne supper was ordered and the electors made a night of it. In the morning the bill, amounting to $2,500, was divided equally between the newly elected alcaldes, and sent to them. Each paid his share, $1,250, without a murmur. Being unable to obtain a bible in the town, Mr Wadsworth says he used to swear witnesses on an old memorandum book. Horse-thieves were the most numerous class of offenders brought before him.
Let him who holds in low esteem youthful justice as manifest in the popular tribunals of the minhigcamps, and in the alcalde courts of the larger towns, during the flush times of California, read the following and then despise not the day of small things. Stephen J. Field, subsequently upon the supreme benches both of the state and of the United States, was in the rough year of 1850 alcalde of the roaring town of Marysville, so called from one Mary, a woman out of whom the seven devils were not cast. Field's first bench was somewhat ruder than his last one; and there was more difference still in the buildings which held the respective courtrooms. Indeed one of his first cases came up while walking the street; nor was this the first peripatetic trial or open air court held in California.
A well-known citizen riding a horse which he had just purchased was met by another citizen who claimed the anhnal as his own. Field passing by and hearing the dispute stopped. Naturally enough both men agreed at once to leave the matter for decision to their newly elected justice of the peace. Swearing the disputants where they stood, he heard the story of each, and decided in favor of the walking claimant, to whom the horse was immediately delivered. The judge's fee, an ounce, was cheerfully paid; and after adjournhig for a brief space to an adjacent saloon, the crowd which had gradually collected during the trial
