ve for this
enmity to the " tile " in the mountains of California, is not that the miners hold that there is anything wrong in the act or fact of a man wearing a beaver, but because it invests the man with a dignity an artificial dignity, it is true, but none the less a dignity too far above that of the man who wears a slouch or felt. The beaver hat is the minority, the slouch hat is the majority; and, like all great majorities, is a mob a cruel, heartless, arrogant, insolent mob, ignorant and presumptive. The beaver hat is a missionary among cannibals in the California mines. And the saddest part of it all is, that there is no hope of reform. Tracts on this subject would be useless. Fancy a beaver hat in a dripping tunnel, or by the splashing flume or dumping derrick!
Born of a low element in our nature is this ant agonism to the beaver hat; cruel as it is curious, selfish, but natural.
The Englishman knows well the power and dignity of a beaver hat. Go into the streets of London and look about you. Surely some power has issued an order not much unlike that of the famous one-armed Sailor " England expects every man to wear a beaver hat."
But to return to this particular hat before us, it is safe to say that no other man than the Judge in all California could have brought into camp and worn with impunity this hat.
It is true there was a universal giggle through the
