gallery of pictures, which were much admired by amateurs. They were miserable copies of Reubens, Titian, etc.; but the lucky ones who drew them in the lottery had perfect faith in their originality, which was guaranteed in the catalogue.
While threshing near Marysville, a man with inveterate gambling proclivities had both of his legs torn off by the machine. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered, he started on a tour through the mountains for the purpose of raising by subscription money enough to buy him two cork legs; but no sooner did he get together $100 or so than he gambled it away at the first gaming-table he could find. Then he would start out again, trailing the ground on crutches and leg-stumps, begging more money only to bet and lose it again, until his untoward ways became generally known, when he was arrested and incarcerated in an asylum.
The following tribute to the game of poker was early paid by an able writer. " We do not know in what happy clime the great game of poker was first introduced; the name of the man out of whose fathomless intellect it soared into the world of created things and began to fascinate the hearts of the people is shrouded in oblivion; but we do know that California is the land where the game has been most favorably received and hidustriously cultivated as a science. In the early days the passion for taking chances, which the stirring incidents of mining life naturally engen dered, and the want of more refined and ennobling means of amusement caused it to be taken at once into favor by the Californians; and in later years it has lost nothing of its singular popularity—rising with the march of civilization, from the cabin to the palace, and exchanging the piebean bean, as a marker, for the gay and ornamental ivory chip. Every Californian, almost, understands the nature of the game, and can play with more or less art, according to the measure
