structure claiming the title of the law. In this strange, swift panorama there is all the story of the social system, all the picture of the building of that temple of the law which, as Americans, we now revere, or, at times, still despise and desecrate. At first the average gold seeker concerned himself little with law, because he intended to make his fortune quickly and then hasten back East to his former home; yet, as early as the winter of 1849, there was elected a legislature which met at San Jose, a Senate of sixteen members and an Assembly of thirty-six. In this election the new American vote was in evidence. The miners had already tired of the semi-military phase of their government, and had met and adopted a state constitution. The legislature enacted one hundred and forty new laws in two months, and abolished all former laws; and then, satisfied with its labors, it left the enforcement of the laws, in the good old American fashion, to whomsoever might take an interest in the matter.[D] This is our custom even to-day. Our great cities of the East are practically all governed, so far as they are governed at all, by civic leagues, civic federations, citizens' leagues, business men's associations--all protests at non-enforcement of the law. This protest in '49 and on the Pacific coast took a sterner form. [Footnote D: Tuthill: "History of California."] At one time the city of San Francisco had three separate and distinct city councils, each claiming to be the only legal one. In spite of the new state organization, the law was much a matter of go as you please. Under such conditions it was no wonder that outlawry began to show its head in bold and well-organized forms. A party of ruffians, who called themselves the "Hounds," banded together to run all foreigners out of the rich camps, and to take their diggings over for themselves. A number of Chileans were beaten or shot, and their property was confiscated or destroyed. This was not in accordance with the saving grace of American justice, which devoted to a man that which he had earned. A counter organization was promptly formed, and the "Hounds" found themselves confronted with two hundred "special constables," each with a good rifle. A mass meeting sat as a court, and twenty of the "Hounds" were tried, ten of them receiving sentences that never were enforced, but which had the desired effect. So now, while far to the eastward the Congress was hotly arguing the question of the admission of California as a state, she was beginning to show an interest in law and justice when aroused thereto.