Following the opening of the Owens River Mines this year, Los Angeles merchants soon established a considerable trade with that territory. Banning inaugurated a system of wagon-trains, each guarded by a detachment of soldiers. The San Fernando mountains, impassable for heavy teaming, were an obstacle to regular trade with the new country and compelled the use of a circuitous route over poor roads. It became necessary, therefore, to consider a means of overcoming the difficulty, much money having already been spent by the County in an abortive attempt to build a tunnel. This second plan likewise came to naught, and it was in fact more than a decade before the Southern Pacific finally completed the famous bore. Largely because of political mistakes, including a manifestation of sympathy for the Southern Confederacy that drew against him Northern resentment and opposition, John G. Downey, the Democratic nominee for Governor, was defeated at the election in September; Frederick F. Low, a Republican, receiving a majority of over twenty thousand votes. In October, a peddler named Brun was murdered near Chino. Brun's brother, living at San Bernardino and subsequently a merchant of prominence there, offered two hundred dollars of his slender savings as a reward for the capture of the slayer; but nothing ever came of the search. In November the stern necessities of war were at last driven home to Angeleños when, on the ninth of that somber month, Don Juan Warner, Deputy Provost Marshal, appeared with his big blank books and began to superintend the registering of all able-bodied citizens suitable for military service. To many, the inquisition was not very welcome and, had it not been for the Union soldiers encamped at Drum Barracks, this first step toward compulsory enrollment would undoubtedly have resulted in riotous disturbances. I have frequently named Tom Mott, but I may not have said that he was one of the representative local Democratic politicians of his day. He possessed, indeed, such influence with all classes that he was not only elected Clerk of Los Angeles County in 1863, but succeeded himself in 1865, 1867 and 1869, afterward sitting in the State Assembly; and in 1876, he was appointed a delegate to the National Convention that nominated Samuel J. Tilden for the Presidency. His relations in time with Stanford, Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins were very close, and for at least twenty-five years he acted as their political adviser in all matters appertaining to Southern California. Tall, erect and dignified, scrupulously attired and distinguished by his flowing beard, Tom was for more than half a century a striking figure in Los Angeles.