with scrupulous care as to details, and conducted with an executive thoroughness seldom observed on such occasions. The city was galore with decorations, both streets and buildings. The latter, however, were not so ornately decorated as they would have been had not word been given out that the Sons themselves were working out a complete system of street display, with electric lights, flags, festoons, and multifarious devices and designs, so that they would not be compelled to call upon the business men to any burdensome degree. And yet many business houses volunteered displays that were marked features of the occasion, a notable instance being that of the Emporium Building, as seen in one of the accompanying illustrations. The general effect of the decorations

will be seen in the pictures taken from points looking up and down Kearny Street, the City Hall at night, Market Street at night, and the night view of the Native Sons Building, on Mason Street.

The parade itself was the largest and most imposing ever seen in California. would be in vain to attempt a description of it in limited space. Suffice it to say, more than 20,000 people were in the procession, and ten times that number witnessed it along the line of march.

Among so many impressive spectacles as the parade presented, we have chosen a few for reproduction from the camera's work. They were all enthusiastically greeted by the crowd at every point. The ladies of the Golden State Parlor, No. 50, N. D. G. W., who were seated in a float in

three tiers of color, received the acclaim of 200,000 throats as they passed along. So also with the twenty-nine daughters of San Jose Parlor, who, dressed in representation of a variety of mythological characters, were seated in a huge shell, drawn, ostensibly, by two gigantic swans. The Sea Point Parlor, of Sausalito, clad in white duck sailor suits, manned a schooner yacht, and appeared to be jolly seamen. Alcalde Parlor presented an adobe house representing the residence. and official headquarters of an old Spanish alcalde administering the crude justice of that early time. And the Piedmont Parlor, Native Sons and Native Daughters, attracted special attention by a float representing the Piedmont ferry-boat, with steam up and smoke puffing from her funnel. These few subjects selected for mention and illustration, give an idea of the great variety of devices which the inventive talents of our native sons and daughters contrived to present. They succeeded in making a pageant which it was worth all the trouble which any witness may have taken in order to see it. One of the special occasions provided for in the general programme of exercises for the celebration was the presentation of the Park Music Stand. This is one of the most imposing and artistic structures of its kind in the world, and it was every way fitting that Mr. Claus Spreckels

should dedicate it to the city and the State on this significant day in California's history. One paragraph in his address of presentation deserves record and appreciation, and we reproduce it:

Loving California as I do, and being grateful for the many benefits that have accrued to me during the earnest and active life I have lived here, I have desired to manifest those feelings in some monumental structure which would stand as a memorial of my citizenship among you. In deciding to erect that memorial in the form it has taken, I was moved by a desire to make it a source of the highest pleasure and good to the largest number of people possible. In my native Germany I had early learned the

value as well as the charm of music and of architecture. I know how potent a benefit it is to a people to have the privilege of listening under beautiful surroundings to the melodies and the harmonies which the master musicians have developed out of their soaring souls for the joy of the world. I know that one of the strongest safeguards against the pleasures that dissipate the energies of men is to furnish them with pleasures which recreate body and brain alike. No other form of amusement which can be provided for large numbers surpasses music in that respect, and accordingly I was easily determined that the purposed memorial should be dedicated to music rendered

free to all and under circumstances that would make it attractive to rich and poor alike.

Another incidental, or accompanying, ceremony was that which launched the Wyoming into the sea and the sisterhood of war-ships bearing the American flag. This ceremony linked another State with California upon this greatest festal occasion in her history. The Governor of Wyoming was on hand, and a fair daughter of that State, Miss Frances H. Warren,

had the honor to christen the new vessel and break the champagne-bottle on her bow. The Wyoming is a vessel intended for coast defense, and belongs to the monitor type. Being a product of California shops, it was fitting that her launching should take place amidst the applauding crowd which the State's fiftieth birthday had called together. That crowd was

immense, jamming the neighboring streets with a dense mass of humanity. Out on the bay rode majestically the battleship Government vessels and official craft, and Iowa, accompanied by numerous other boats of every description. It was in the midst of this spectacular scene that Miss Edna Bartlett, of Cheyenne, acting in behalf of her State, touched the electric button and the ax of the miniature guillotine fell severing the rope, and amid the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner from the Iowa's band, the big vessel, two and a half million pounds of steel, was set afloat upon the waters of San Francisco Bay, ready for the defense of " Old Glory."

A

T the bar or on the bench to-day there are very few-if there be any -natives of the State of California who were members of the bar that existed when I was first entitled to call myself an LL. B., or attorney and counselor at law. I suppose that it is for this reason that I have been requested to furnish a few words for the readers of this California monthly, in its Golden Jubilee issue.

During the first half of the half-century about drawing to a close, I was engaged in attaining manhood and acquiring such education as I have. Nothing of that period, therefore, coming from my pen, would be of interest to adults, except, perhaps, a description of the growth of San Francisco or of some of its old landmarks, now obliterated. Such matters, however, have been so often written about that anything I might say would be but repetition. The last half of that half century presents a better field, as I have for a little more than that period practiced my profession in this community.

In 1874, I first embarked on the real ocean of life, and commenced here the practice of my profession, and was actually engaged therein until I was compelled, through failure of health, to give it up and accept, in 1896, the nomination for the position on the bench which I now hold, and to which I was in that year elected. At the bar and on the bench of this State I have in that quarter of a century witnessed many changes; a relation of some of which might be of interest to the readers of the OVERLAND, but space will not permit an article of that kind.

In contemplating a text for this article, many things, many people, and many subjects have passed before my mind's eye. It has occurred to me that I might write concerning the natives of California who have earned honored positions upon the bench. The lawyers born in this State who have gained fame and made names for themselves might likewise furnish a subject for discourse, so, also, might those

native sons who have honorably filled political positions. These sons of California, of whom we are all proud, have been so often discussed, that I determined to seek some other text.

Somewhere, by somebody, in a poem, the meter and exact words of which I have forgotten, memory is most beautifully described "as coming with noiseless step and leading us through its twilight realms." The poem proceeds to the following effect, but in meter, and in words more eloquent: Upon its gently sloping hillside, bend the weeping-willows over the sacred dust of the departed, and in that land, wherever our footsteps fall, those who were sleeping rise from out the dust of death's long silent years and stand around us, as they did before the prison tombs received their clay within its voiceless halls.

What

With me the request to write this article has carried me into these realms of memory. Visions both of the past and of the future, have filled my mind. the bench and bar were when I first opened an office in San Francisco, what they are to-day, and what may be expected of them