other bondholders, against the Board of Supervisors of the County of El Dorado, to compel the said county to levy and collect a tax for the payment of the interest due on said bonds; and a writ of mandamus was issued by the said Supreme Court; whereupon the Board of Supervisors of said county, confederating and conspiring so to prevent the service of the said writ and to defeat the just rights of the bondholders, hurriedly resigned. (See Supreme Court cases, register number 4022.) That in pursuance of what seems to be an organized conspiracy in said county to repudiate its obligations and to avoid the payment of the said bonds or the interest thereon, and to prevent the bondholders from asserting their rights in the Courts, there has been no Board of Supervisors in said county since eighteen hundred and seventythree to the present time, nor any Board or officer upon whom service could be made of legal process against said county. That the ordinary and constitutional government of the County of El Dorado was procured to be superseded and abolished, and instead thereof an extraordinary and anomalous body, called a Board of Auditors, was procured to be created specially for the government of that county, but without any authority to levy taxes or to pay said bonds or the interest thereon. (See Laws of 1873-4, page 825.) That in eighteen hundred and seventy-six another Act was procured to be passed, wherein it was provided as follows: "The Board shall not have any control over any suits brought for or against the county, nor can any summons or other writs against the county, in any suit or proceeding whatever, be served upon the Board or any member thereof; and the service of any writ or order upon the Board or any member thereof shall not in any manner be binding upon the county." (See Laws of 1875–6, page 683.) The undersigned believe that it is not necessary for them to do more than refer, as they have done, to the special and unconstitutional character of the legislation by which the County of El Dorado alone, of all the counties in this State, has been exempted from legal responsibility and jurisdiction, and by which it alone, of all the counties of the State, has been excluded from an equal and uniform system of county government by an elective Board of Supervisors, and handed over to the control of three persons, styled a Board of Auditors, not elected by the people of said county, but appointed by the County Judge. (See Laws of 1873-4, page 825; Constitution of California, Article XI., Sections 4 and 5.) Your memorialists are advised that the object and purpose of those who contrived said proceedings and procured said laws to be enacted, was to repudiate the just debts and obligations of said county, and to confiscate the property of the bondholders, by depriving them of all legal remedy; and they respectfully submit, that the acts of legislation complained of are, so far as is known to your memorialists, without a precedent in the legislation of any English speaking people. Wherefore, your memorialists, being without remedy, respectfully appeal to your Excellency to lay this matter before the Legislature, and to the Legislature we appeal for such action as justice, good faith, and the public credit may require. Your memorialists offer to accept new bonds of the County of El Dorado, running for any length of time-fifty years, if desired by said county with interest at a lower rate than is borne by any bonds ever issued in this State; or, in the alternative, they respectfully ask MEMORIAL OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE SAN FRANCISCO LYING-IN HOSPITAL AND FOUNDLING ASYLUM, TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. MEMORIAL. PRESENTED TO THE LEGISLATURE FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT. To the honorable the Senate and Assembly of the Legislature of the State of California: Your petitioners, Trustees of the San Francisco Lying-in Hospital and Foundling Asylum, most respectfully submit the following propositions, and ask the following amount of aid from the State. Said Institution is engaged in the beneficent work of providing for foundlings, and saving the victims of misplaced confidence and love from becoming outcasts of society, and enabling them to become good and useful women, and to save from death their innocent offspring. We believe the following propositions can be established: First-That as large a number of respectable girls, through misguided love, are seduced on this coast, annually, as there are men and women who become inmates of the State Insane Asylum. Second-That as large a number of these unfortunate girls can be saved to society, and will become good women, provided said Institution can have sufficient aid to carry out its benevolent designs, as the numbers restored to their reason by the treatment at the Insane Asylums, and will prove quite as useful in promoting the progress and development of the State. Third That depraved women, and the abuse of alcoholic stimulants, are by far the largest elements that operate to demoralize society. That prostitution with its accompanying evils is increasing at a fearful rate. That every girl saved from prostitution is a saving to the State of thousands of dollars. That the cost to the State caused by the depraved class mentioned is beyond calculation. That a majority of those who follow lives of prostitution are victims of seduction. That if the laws now upon our statute books for the punishment of abortion, fœticide, infanticide, homicide, etc., were as effectually administered as the laws for murder, arson, highway robbery, theft, and minor crimes, prison accommodations would have to be doubled. The correctness of the above propositions would be made apparent if the authorities of the State would cause to be made an investiga tion, such as the Governors of the New York Alms-house instituted, assisted by the then Mayor, Fernando Wood, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-six and fifty-seven, from whose report it appears that then there were upwards of six thousand prostitutes in the single City of New York, without including women who fill the position of kept mistresses or those who occasionally visit houses of assignation. (See Sangers' Report). Of the rapid increase of this degraded class no adequate idea can be formed without consulting statistics. But Professor Elliot, in a paper read by him before the New York Historical Society, only eleven years later than the report above referred to, says: that the City of New York contained twenty-five thousand public prostitutes. Doctor Sangers' work contains estimates, based on statistics, of the inmense cost in every department of State and municipal governments that prostitution causes, and fully corroborates the foregoing statement. Fourth-That with ample means at the disposal of the Institution a greater number of girls will be saved from entering the ranks of prostitution than will be reformed from those ranks by Magdalen Asylums, and all other organizations combined. Fifth-That of those already aided by this Institution, not over five per cent. have gone into prostitution. That many of them are gracing comfortable homes, having given birth to legitimate children, while others of them give equal promise. Sixth-That it is sound State policy, and more legitimate to appropriate funds to aid in preventing crime, promoting virtue, morality, and good citizenship, than it is not to do so, trusting to punishment alone, thereby causing increased appropriations for prisons, hospitals, police, judicial, and all other paraphernalia requisite to control the vicious. The maxim that State aid should not be given to institutions which are not wholly under the direction of State officials, is to an extent true, but like all general rules has its exceptions. Asylums for the insane, deaf, dumb, and blind, and for other unfortunate classes would, in all probability, not now have been in existence had not enlightened and philanthropic individuals first originated and nursed them into maturity, aided by State and municipal authorities. With our changeable political condition and mode of making appointments, it would probably have been impossible (if they had been originated by the State) for these institutions to now exist in anything like their present efficiency and usefulness. We beg to refer you to a copy of our report made to the Legislature in accordance with law, which is hereto annexed, as an earnest of what we expect to do if we receive requisite aid. The municipal authorities of San Francisco have generously deeded to us a whole block of land, which will afford sufficient room for the wants of the Institution for half a century to come. Unless we can receive an amount of funds that will enable us to erect buildings thereon, this munificent gift will remain entirely valueless to us. We, therefore, most respectfully submit the foregoing considerations and ask your honorable bodies to appropriate: First-The sum of four thousand dollars to cancel a debt of about that amount which has been accumulating upon us during the past |