During the first decade under the American _régime_, Los Angeles gradually learned the value of reaching toward the outside world and welcoming all who responded. In 1855, as I have said, a brisk trade was begun with Salt Lake, through the opening up of a route--leading along the old Spanish trail to Santa Fé. Banning & Alexander, with their usual enterprise, together with W. T. B. Sanford, made the first shipment in a heavily-freighted train of fifteen wagons drawn by one hundred and fifty mules. The train, which carried thirty tons, was gone four months; having left Los Angeles in May, it returned in September. In every respect the experiment was a success, and naturally the new route had a beneficial effect on Southern California trade. It also contributed to the development of San Bernardino, through which town it passed. Before the year was out, one or two express companies were placarding the stores here with announcements of rates "To Great Salt Lake City." Banning, by the way, then purchased in Salt Lake the best wagons he had, and brought here some of the first vehicles with spokes to be seen in Los Angeles. The school authorities of the past sometimes sailed on waters as troubled as those rocking the Educational Boards to-day. I recall an amusing incident of the middle fifties, when a new set of Trustees, having succeeded to the control of affairs, were scandalized, or at least pretended to be, by an action of their predecessors, and immediately adopted the following resolution: _Resolved_, that page seven of the School Commissioners' Record be pasted down on page eight, so that the indecorous language written therein by the School Commissioners of 1855, can never again be read or seen, said language being couched in such terms that the present School Commissioners are not willing to read such record. Richard Laughlin died at his vineyard, on the east side of Alameda Street, in or soon after 1855. Like William Wolfskill, Ewing Young--who fitted out the Wolfskill party--and Moses Carson, brother of the better-known Kit and at one time a trader at San Pedro, Laughlin was a trapper who made his way to Los Angeles along the Gila River. This was a waterway of the savage Apache country traversed even in 1854--according to the lone ferryman's statistics--by nearly ten thousand persons. In middle life, Laughlin supported himself by carpentry and hunting. With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese in California, the prejudice of the masses was stirred up violently. This feeling found expression particularly in 1855, when a law was passed by the Legislature, imposing a fine of fifty dollars on each owner or master of a vessel bringing to California anyone incapable of becoming a citizen; but when suit was instituted, to test the act's validity, it was declared unconstitutional. At that time, most of the opposition to the Chinese came from San Franciscans, there being but few coolies here.