I do not recall any important changes in 1862, the declining months of which saw the beginning of the two years' devastating drought. The Civil War was in progress, but we were so far from the scene of strife that we were not materially affected. Sympathy was very general here for the Confederate cause, and the Government therefore retained in Wilmington both troops and clerks who were paid in a badly-depreciated currency, which they were obliged to discount at exorbitant rates, to get money at all; while other employees had to accept vouchers which were subject to a still greater discount. Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, pay-day increased the resources of the pueblo considerably. Hellman & Brother, a partnership consisting of I. M. and Samuel Hellman, dissolved, on January 2d, I. M. continuing in the dry goods business while Sam took the books and stationery. Another brother and associate, H. M. Hellman, a couple of years before had returned to Europe, where he died. If my memory is accurate, I. W. remained with I. M. Hellman until the former, in 1865, bought out A. Portugal. Samuel A. Widney, who later had a curio store, was for a while with Sam Hellman in a partnership known as Hellman & Widney. On January 17th, Don Louis Vignes passed away in Los Angeles, at the age of ninety-one years. January also witnessed one of those typical scenes, in the fitting out of a mule- and wagon-train, never likely to be seen in Los Angeles again. Two hundred wagons and twelve hundred mules, mostly brought from San Francisco on steamers, were assembled for a trip across the desert to convey Government stores. M. J. Newmark became a partner, on February 1st, in the firm of Howard, Butterworth & Newmark, Federal and State Attorneys with offices in the Temple Building, Los Angeles, and Armory Hall, San Francisco; and it was considered at the time a rapid advance for a man of but twenty-three years of age. The Los Angeles _Star_ of that date, in fact, added a word of good fellowship: "We congratulate friend Newmark on the association." The intimate relations characteristic of a small community such as ours, and the much more general effect then than nowadays of any tragical occurrence have already been described. Deep sympathy was therefore awakened, early in February, on the arrival of the steamer _Senator_ and the rapid dissemination of the report that Dr. Thomas Foster, the ex-Mayor, had been lost overboard, on January 29th, on the boat's trip northward. Just what happened to Foster will never be known; in San Francisco it was reported that he had thrown himself into the sea, though others who knew him well looked upon the cause of his death as accidental.