October 15, the Republicans had nominated Samuel H. Dwinelle as justice of the supreme court to serve out the term made vacant by the death of Justice Royal T. Sprague. The Democrats had nominated Samuel B. McKee for the same office. And so the contest stood up to the September election, when the Dolly Varden triumph suggested the formation of a permanent new state party under Dolly Varden control and the nomination of a candidate for the vacancy on the supreme bench. The result was the organization of what was called the People's Independent party; the hasty calling of a judicial state convention, which met at Sacramento on September 25; the adoption of a platform which was mainly directed, in addition to anti-railroad declamation, to strictures against party corruption and protests against party fealty, and the nomination of E. W. McKinstry for justice of the supreme court. The election, like the previous one, was carried by the whim, hurrah or excitement of the hour-whatever may be the correct term to use for so sudden and ephemeral a phenomenon and with even greater majorities. McKinstry received nearly twenty-six thousand votes as against about twenty thousand for McKee and a little over fourteen thousand for Dwinelle.1 But the excitement of these contests and the prestige of Dolly Vardenism itself died out almost as rapidly as they had risen; so that there was very little of them left even when the next legislature met on December 1, 1873. Though Booth, as will be seen, managed to secure his election to the United States senate, the Dolly Varden or People's Independent party played but a small figure and, besides, kept continually diminishing; and most of those, who had received its votes, as well as those who had given it votes, drifted off into affiliations with their old parties.

While politics were thus engrossing the attention of a portion of the public, a great and very important invention and improvement in city passenger transportation was being worked out in San Francisco. The development of the street railroad system of that city, which superseded the use of omnibuses about the year 1863 as has seen seen, met with serious obstacles in the numerous hills and steep grades, which could not practically be surmounted by the ordinary horse-cars that were successfully used 'Davis' Political Conventions, 325-335.

on the more level grounds. As much of the most desirable residence property was on the heights, and particularly those hills that overlooked the magnificent scenery of the bay and afforded views of the Contra Costa range and the purple peaks of Tamalpais and Monte Diablo, it became a problem how to get up and down them cheaply, speedily, conveniently and safely. Among the first whose attention was directed to the subject was A. S. Hallidie of San Francisco, manufacturer of wire rope, who appears to have been for some time engaged in devising modes of transporting materials over mountain roads by means of continuouslyrunning cables. If any such device should be used in a city, it would of course be necessary to prevent any material obstruction of the street for ordinary travel and enable the vehicles, used with it, to be moved up or down at a sufficient rate of speed, and at the same time to be stopped at any moment and in any part of the line as might be desired. The first difficulty would be overcome by sinking an endless, or in other words a circuit of continuouslymoving, cable under-ground, and the second, by some kind of a grip that would catch or let go the cable at any point and run with it at full speed or any less rate as might be wished. Several contrivances for utilizing cables and grips had been devised by other persons; but the exact thing for the purpose of a steep street railroad in a city remained a disideratum.

About the beginning of 1872, a number of citizens including Hallidie, Joseph W. Britton, Henry L. Davis and others were interested in a project to run a railroad of some kind from the business portion of the city up Russian Hill. It appears that at first a road for horse-cars was contemplated; but Hallidie was still revolving the idea of a cable in his mind. About the same time, a skillful civil engineer, named William Eppelsheimer, who had been recommended to him by Irving M. Scott-afterwards the head of the Union Iron Works and the builder of some of the largest and most efficient government war vessels afloat—was engaged by Hallidie; furnished with his ideas about a cable. road; instructed in what was to be accomplished, and set to work on the details. Like most other inventions of the kind, valuable suggestions were made by different persons; Britton seems to have had something to do with the manner of using

the cable; others also dropped hints that were turned to account; but it was chiefly Hallidie, aided however to some extent by Eppelsheimer-who became superintendent of construction and chief engineer of the road-that was entitled to the credit of conceiving and solving the problem of how to use the cable and make it practicable. Even after the plans were all worked out, it was some time before the public could be made to believe in the system. It was easy for anybody to suggest difficulties, and some of them seemed very serious. But notwithstanding everything that could be said, the projectors, after convincing themselves, no longer hesitated. They started at once to build a double railroad track, with an underground trench in the center of each pair of rails, connecting with the surface by a continuous very narrow open slot, all the way on Clay street from Kearny to Jones; stretched their wire cable on rollers in it so that there would be a descending cable under one track and an ascending cable under the other; erected a powerful engine with a drum to drive the cable at Leavenworth street, and built a number of cars in such manner that each could be attached to the cable by a steel bar passing down through the slot and having at the lower end a grip so arranged with rollers that it would catch and hold or release the cable or let it slip through the rollers as might be desired, and also having a contrivance at its upper end in the car, worked by a wheel and double screw, to open or contract the grip at will. At each terminus of the line there were turn-tables; and the whole was so constructed that the bars, running down through the slot and connecting cars with grips, were to be carried along and have unobstructed play through the whole length of the line up and down and around from one track to the other at the termini.

It was on June 2, 1873-for it took some time to work out all the details-that ground was broken for the new road. But when a start was made, construction was comparatively rapid. The distance from Kearny street to Jones was about twentyeight hundred feet, and the summit at Jones street was three hundred and seven feet above the level of Kearny. On August 2, 1873, the road was completed to Jones street and several cars

were run up and down. It then being determined to extend the cable system five hundred feet further to the stationary engine house at Leavenworth street, some further delay occurred; but by the beginning of September, 1873, the line opened for general traffic and proved to be a great success not only in a mechanical but also in a financial point of view. On account of this success, it did not take long for other roads of similar character to start; they were found to be quite as available for level ground as for steep grades; and various improvements were made from time to time-one, for which Asa E. Hovey is entitled to the credit, being the use of a comparatively simple lever for working the grip instead of the complicated double screw before mentioned. In the course of a few years, cable roads were running in almost every direction not only in and about San Francisco but in many other cities and towns of California and also in cities of other states and countries. They could be worked more economically than horse railroads, and with much greater speed and more satisfaction to the public. And there can be no doubt that they would have been extended and improved to a much greater extent, if it had not been for the extraordinary development of electric roads for city as well as country purposes, and for ascending steep grades as well as for level running, which have substantially superseded the cable lines and are now the roads of the day.

CHAPTER VIII.

TH

BOOTH AND PACHECO.

HE legislature of 1873-4 organized by electing Democratic officers in the senate, with William Irwin at the head, and mixed officers in the assembly with Morris M. Estee as Dolly Varden speaker, chosen only after a long and bitter contest and by the majority of a single vote. Immediately upon its organization on December 5, 1873, Booth presented his biennial message. He thought he had reason to congratulate the people on the general good condition of affairs. He called attention to the fact that while in former years property had been assessed at different rates in different parts of the state, varying from as little as fifteen per cent of actual values in some quarters to as much as eighty per cent in others, the state board of equalization, recently organized, had brought about more uniformity and in doing so had raised the assessment roll of the state from about two hundred and sixty-seven millions of dollars in 1871 to about six hundred and thirty-seven millions in 1872. This amount, however, included assessments for solvent debts, which had in April been decided by the supreme court to be unconstitutional for the reason that it was double taxation; and the assessment roll of 1873 had therefore, by striking out such solvent debts, been considerably reduced but still amounted to upwards of five hundred and twenty-seven millions of dollars and nearly twice the amount of 1871. He stated the amount of the state debt, other than the school and other bonds held by public institutions, to be a little over two and a quarter millions of dollars. But when he came to speak of the indebtedness of the various counties of the state, he showed that their funded debts amounted to more than seven and a half million dollars, and declared that