AMERICAN NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 3851, 28 June 1875, Page 3

AMERICAN NOTES.

W. O. Ralston, President of the Bank of California, who, with D. O. Mills, inaugurated the enterprise of erecting the Grand Palace Hotel, has disposed of his interest to for 1,500,000d01., but Mr Ralston is to suuerintend the finishing of the hotel, which, with the land, will cost over 3,000,000d0L The cost of this gigantic hotel, with the ground it stands on, is estimated at L 200.000. Mill’s half-share was sold for L36.ooo—the largest single transaction in real property that has ever taken place in San Francisco. It is the current opinion in San Francisco that Beecher will receive an adverse verdict. The Palace Hotel, which is nearly completed, will contain eight hundred rooms, and accommodate over a thousand visitors. Each corridor is supplied with an ample supply of water, that can be turned on at a moment’s notice. Thermometers placed at stated intervals along each passage will give the watchmen, who keep their watches day and night, timely notice of any rise ia temperature. The roof of the hotel is flat, and will be laid out as a fashionable promenade, to which access can be gained without fatigue by means of a steam lift. Each corridor will be provided with a letter-receiver connected pneumatically with the main post-office in the building,’ The basement will be devoted to the various trades or businesses which will flourish on the patronage of the guests, who in number will exceed the population of many up-country towns Without leaving his table a man wiU be able to despatch or receive his letters, communicate telegraphically with Europe or Asia, consult his lawyer, doctor, or stockbroker, procure a passport to foreign countries, provide himself with a suic of clothes, or the latest threevolume novel The law of libel as written in the testimony of the suits against the 4 Chicago Times’ will form an interesting chapter in American jurisprudence. For defaming a young lady’s character, the damages assessed against the 4 Times’ was 25,000d015,; for calling a lawyer a shyster, 500dols.; for calling a railway magnate 44 a public robber ” lOOdols. ; for denouncing an alderman as a jail-bird, not one cent. Judge O. C. Cole, of the lowa Supreme Court, for many years one of the most prominent prohibitionists in the north-west, has recently published a letter in which he says that a fuller examination of the facts and theories of prohibition has led him to consider its practical enforcement an impossibility. That has been the experience of Massachusetts and other btates which have tried prohibitory laws.

Miller, late of Australia, had a forty-mile walking match at San Francisco on the 14th May with H. Gilpin for 500 dollars, and beat his opponent easily. Miller walked the distance in Bhrs. 48mins. The Ophir mine has been the theme of men and journalists of San Francisco for the last two weeks. This mine is one of those situated at the famous Bonanza reef or lode. So copious was the yield, so rich the ore, that its discoverers not inaptly named it aft-, r that mysterious land whence King Solomon procured his precious metals. To the fortunate shareholders the mine was considered a permanent source of wealth. Shares, by a series of rapid leaps, rose in a few days to forty times their original valge. Vast fortunes were realised in a few weeks, and it seemed as if the old days of El Dorado were about to return. After a while, indeed, the shares fell some fifty per cent, but still paid handsomely as an invest ment. -Within the last ten days all this has been changed with woeful rapidity. Every day has witnessed a decline of two or three pounds per share, until the sixty-pound shares are now not worth seven pounds. To make matters worse, the directors have determined to make a call, and, .strangely enough, have fixed on a time of panic, as at the present, in which to make their intention public. After all, it would seem tbat there is no real cause, as regards the actual condition of the mine, for this expression. There can unfortunately be little doubt that it is owing to the operations a ‘‘"P*” a °f great signficance in all political or business circles iu America. The sharemarket, in a word, has been 44 beared ” to enrich a few unscrupulous men at the expense of the general body of shareholders Julius Duncan, a newspaper reporter in the Beecher-Tilton case, who committed suicide, in a letter to his employers advising them of his intention, said— 44 1 am weary with, the blasphemy and perjury of the Beecher trial, and poison myself to get out of it.” Henry M. Cleaveland, one of the witnesses, is in such a state of physical prostration, consequent on severe cross-examination, that he is not expected to survive.

Something similar to the following addendum to obituary notices is f-eqnently met with m American papers “ The taking off from the family circle this exemplaiy young man has left a gloom there which cannot soon be lighted; and in the circle where his daily labors t ok him many a sad heart is found, and many an eye has shed a tear over his memory.” Jesse Pomeroy, the boy who has been subjecting smaller children in Boston to excruciating tortures for some years, has been sentenced t°, be hung, by the Judge before whom he was tried and convicted for the murder of the boy jj-- 11, i his youthful felon confessed that in addition to torturing several children lie had cruelly butchered one Kate Curran. It is said that while the Judge was delivering a feeling address, and pronouncing the highest sentence known to the law, no person in the court-room seemed to appreciate the solemnity of the occasion less than Pomeroy himself. During the pioceedings he preserved that calm, stolid, and indifferent manner which characterised bis appearance during the trial—not moving a muscle or seeming to care for the fate which awaited him.

Mrs Tilton writes to the .Judge “ Sir —Bv the law’s peculiar phrase I am debarred from appearing before you as a witness, because my husband seeks a fortune at the price of my dishonor. I have a mother and several children lam a woman with no legacy to k-ave those children save a spotless name. Judge for yourself, then, whether I can tamely submit to the taunting lies of him who has sworn to love and cherish me, whose selfish slanders have tom me from hearth and home, blasted my name, and turned mo penniless upon the charity of friends. I demand to be heard by the jury to whom has been told the falsehood of my protector. Surely, if he can address the jury for days, aided by cunning and unscrupulous counsel that he may ruin my reputation, cast obloquy and reproach upon my name and make me the by-word and scorn of all u 6 j WOr x ’ 00 > have a right to be beard; I, too, have a tale to tell; I, too have a revelation to maV.j, Tin'aught by counsel, unaided by friends, without the stimulant of companions, I come alone and stand at the bar for justice. I ask no mercy. I seek for no favors. I simply ask that a wronged wife and injured woman way be permitted to meet the calumnies of a perjured man and an unfaithful husband Midnight is daylight., when contrasted wi‘h him Ihe Father of Lies is an angel of parity when contrasted with this monstrous hypocrite I crave no mercy; but for my sake, for mv children s sake, and for the sake of womanhood throughout the word, I ask this pr. cions boon of self-defence against the brutal onslaught of a brutal husband.” 6