E off in ditches during the summer months, ers. There is neither justice nor wisdom in E and conducted into the valleys. No con- the diversion of that water to other strips demnation of water-rights would be neces- of territory, leaving the former dry and insary, for the storing of the surplus flow of fertile. The State is not enriched thereby. the streams would not interfere with the use The only result is the impoverishment of one of the waters for domestic purposes, with class for the benefit of another. Were it comthe natural irrigation along the streams, and petent for the State to declare the waters of with the water power derivable from the nat- our streams public property, the only conseural fall. The hydraulic mining companies quence would be a struggle to appropriate the adopted this system for mining purposes. same, resulting in the exclusive appropriation They erected enormous dams in the Sierra of the waters naturally running during the Nevadas, and thereby secured for themselves, summer months to the use of a limited terriwithout diminishing the usual flow of the tory or class. Ultimately, the method of storstreams, a supply for their summer opera- ing the winter floods would have to be resorttions. ed to, as the only means of supplying irrigation facilities to the entire territory within our valleys. The doctrine of riparian rights, as applied to California, has been stigmatized as unjust, unwise, and as conducing to monopolies. But it is very questionable whether that doctrine is not eminently just and wise. The owner of lands upon a stream does not claim the right to divert its waters and to vend them to the public. He claims only the right to enjoy the natural advantages secured to his lands by their situation. He has a monopoly of the advantages resulting from the stream in the sense only in which a man has the monopoly of a mine when he owns the land upon which it is discovered, or of the advantages resulting from a fertile soil, or from a valuable stand of timber upon his property. He has not a monopoly in the sense that he has the control of something which is of no value to him except so far as he can compel others to pay him tribute for the use thereof. The irrigationists propose to deprive him of an intrinsic source of value to his land, in order that they may reap an equivalent, but no greater, value. The many men who purchased lands upon our streams, purchased the same from the government, with the view of enjoying their natural advantages; and to deprive them of that which renders their property valuable is equally unjust and unwise. The waters flowing down our streams during the months when irrigation is necessary are sufficient to irrigate but a small portion of the lands of the great valleys. They now serve to naturally irrigate certain strips of territory, in the possession of private own The riparian doctrines of the common law are, as a matter of fact, a magnificent foundation upon which to base a State system of water laws and irrigation rights. They determine with accuracy the rights of all parties to the natural and ordinary flow of our streams. The particular objections urged to the doctrines on the score of justice are more specious than real. The case frequently cited as an instance of their unjust operation, when carefully examined, is found to involve no element of injustice. That case is where an owner of lands, extending, say, ten miles from the side of a stream, divides the land into twenty-acre lots, and sells the same to different purchasers. It is urged that an injustice is done to the owners of the lots not bordering upon the stream; but such is not the case. It is true that the owners of the lots adjoining the stream alone enjoy the use of the stream for domestic purposes, alone enjoy the water power and the opportunity to artificially irrigate their lands, so far as they can do so without diminishing the volume of the natural flow. But they have paid for those advantages by paying a greater price for their lands; while the owners of outlying lots have purchased their lands with full knowledge of the absence of such advantages. The latter are not debarred from the privilege of diverting the water for purposes of artificial irrigation because of the rights or for the benefit of the riparian owners between them and the stream, but because of the rights and for the benefit of the hundreds of owners of lands below upon the stream. Were the riparian owners between them and the stream to assent, the diversion could not be accomplished, because it would involve injury to those hundreds below. Nor are the owners of the outlying tracts without benefit from the riparian doctrine. So far as their lands are in the river plain, and are naturally irrigated by the seepage or percolation through the soil of water from the stream, they have riparian rights. Were all the owners of lands upon the banks of the stream to consent to the diversion of all the water of the stream at a point above, these owners of outlying tracts would have a remedy, in case, through the cessation of natural irrigation through the soil, their lands were rendered appreciably dry and less fruitful. The provisions of the civil code of California (pp. 1410, 1422), while they cannot authorize an interference with riparian rights, and therefore cannot authorize the appropriation of waters ordinarily flowing down our streams during the summer months, are adapted to enable the appropriation of the flood waters of our rivers and their storage in reservoirs in the cañons in the Sierra Nevadas. The riparian owner has no property in the water. His right is confined to the advantages he derives from the ordinary flow of the stream. In the absence of such provisions, no company could dam up and thus appropriate flood waters with any assurance that they might not be deprived of the same at any moment. If the State so desires, it may convert the right to reservoir these waters and to distribute them to the valley lands into a privilege subject to conditions imposed by the State, and subject to regulation as to water rates exacted, and as to facilities extended to the agricultural districts. Thereby many of the abuses which might otherwise spring from the private control of the means of artificial irrigation may be prevented. If the State sees fit, the State may itself proceed to build, at its own expense, dams and ditches, and to operate the same. But private enterprise would probably accomplish the desired end with greater certainty and efficiency and at less expense. In this connection, it is to be noticed that the abolition of riparian rights, if it could be accomplished, would leave the waters open to appropriation, and the valuable property would inevitably fall to the strongest, that is into the hands of private monopolies. If the State should attempt to manage its waters through its governmental machinery, as public property, a paternal element would be introduced into the State. Such an element is especially dangerous, when we consider that in proportion as the administration partakes of that character can the State be converted to the purpose of communism with greater ease. The State would have appropriated property claimed by individuals, and would be administering it for the so-called good of all. What better precedent is needed for the progressive encroachment upon the rights of individuals for the assumed good of all? What greater aid can be given to those who seek to use the State to a paternal or communistic end, than can be given by creating a large class of government employees, engaged in the management of governmental works of great magnitude, and a large attendant class seeking for governmental employment, and eager to enlarge the industrial activity of the State in order to increase the number of its employees? The unsuitableness to our country of the laws of France, Italy and other states, relating to water, consists in the intensely paternal government required for their administration. The true course for the State is to protect vested rights by recognizing the water rights of riparian owners; to provide for their condemnation, if necessary, to the public use; and to authorize the appropriation of the flood waters by private companies and corporations, not in absolute property, but in pursuance of a privilege extended by the State and subject in its enjoyment to State regulation. Thereby rights will be protected, monopolies prevented, and yet all progress towards a paternal government be avoided. John H. Durst. LIFE AND DEATH. Two Angels, clad in untouched white, The other's look was that the midnight has This, a golden goblet, shining to the brim And he, that other, held a chalice Save for one half-clinging drop. "Whither goest, Angel?" said the smiling one, While yet they stood, in doubt, apart. "To yonder palace, brother sweet, Unto the queen. And whither thou?" "Unto the prince, her son, that is to be." "If must be, hand in hand we go," Said Life, and bowed his shining head; So Life went in; and Death awaited there, Then, closely following, stood beside the queen. The other pressed him back,-"Too late!" he cried, "It is too late! she knew not what she did, And snatched my goblet, drinking half." "Yet would she rather, had she known,Have taken mine," mused Death. "Ay, or no, I cannot tell," said Life; "For may the prince be better served With half, than all the lotted years, And may the world be better served With half a life this mother guides—” "Ay, or no, we cannot tell," mused Death. Then, hand in hand, they left the hall, And Sleep, soft trailing through the chamber door, Stooped low above the mother-queen, And lapped the infant prince in dreams. I. H. A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE: A TALE OF THE ARIZONA MOUNTAINS. THE following story was related to me by the leading actor in the adventure himself. I have written it in the way he told me, using his language as nearly as possible, only substituting fictitious for the real names of the parties concerned. I was in love with my employer's daughter Alice-the old story-and was too poor to pay my addresses to her, although I felt sure in my heart she loved me. Her father, a large importer of fine cloth, was a proud old man, subject to frequent attacks of rheumatism; so it fell to my lot to perform my business duties in the handsome, spacious library of his Fifth Avenue mansion, instead of in the dingy down-town office in street. I am a short-hand expert, so Mr. Baxter would dic. tate to me his voluminous correspondence, and I would take it down in short-hand, and afterward, in my own room, in script. This room of mine, away down in the lower part of town, was poor and bare enough, I assure you, with not a superfluous article in the way of furniture or ornamentation—indeed, hardly the necessities of life, I thought then. All that can be said in favor of it is, that it was neat and clean. It was on the "basin and pitcher floor" of a once fine house, now fast falling into disrepair, in a quiet street, where I could see from my short, square attic window the tall, misty masts of the great ships lying at the city docks. Somehow the constant sight of these masts made me restless, suggesting as they did faraway countries, and seas, and foreign soil; and not without reason altogether, for at the time I speak of I had been guilty of a great imprudence, of the enormity of which, at that moment, I was fortunately in ignorance. I imagined I was making the great strike of my life. But I must be more explicit : There was a reason for my economy and poverty. Although I received, comparatively speaking, a large salary, for fourteen long months I had prepared my breakfast and supper on a miniature oil stove, brewing my tea and boiling my couple of eggs, with a roll or two from the neighboring baker's. My one square meal had been in the middle of the day, at a place I had patronized for a long time—an odd, poor little Italian restaurant in an obscure portion of the city, where I could get a hearty dinner with soup for twenty-five cents. This resort was patronized by men as poor and Bohemian as myself apparently, and as reserved, for they came in quietly, and although seated table d'hôte rarely exchanged words or even commonplace remarks. Many frequenting the restaurant daily for months, never made acquaintances; and almost invariably they came alone, and not in companies of twos and threes. I had discovered this queer little place in my Bohemian days, when I was a reporter on one of the big daily papers and my work took me into all and any of the mysterious nooks in the wonderful city of New York. I kept going there even after my engagement with "Baxter & Bros.," and had managed to put by quite a considerable sum, when I came into contact with the influence which changed my whole life. I had known Miss Baxter then for several months-a beautiful, brown-eyed, brownhaired girl of twenty or thereabouts, with the most winning smile ever seen on a woman's face. Her father could not bear her out of his sight, so she would bring her work to the library and there sit beside him, as he dictated to me his correspondence. Mr. Baxter always treated me like a gentleman. The idea of his amanuensis falling in love with his daughter never seemed to enter his mind, and as I aimed to be a man of honor, I never by word or sign violated his confidence; for although I could not sit day after day in the society of his charming daughter without falling in love with her, I never told her of it, and the opportunities were many. I was proud and poor; for paltry enough was the sum in my possession with which to aspire to the hand of an heiress. It was a warm, sultry day in the early part of September, and while going to dinner I felt nearly overcome by the heat. My work had been almost doubled for several days, and I was completely fagged out. Distracted by my own cares and thoughts, I entered at noon on this fatal September day, Taglionini's little restaurant. I sat languidly down at my place at table, and pushed from before me my plate of soup, for I had no appetite or wish for anything. As I did so, a man, who for some time had been my vis-a-vis, regarded me with serious and fixed attention. had long been a subject of curious observation and speculation to me, for he was totally unlike any of the other frequenters of Taglionini's, or, indeed, any one I had ever seen before. Tall, magnificently built, strikingly handsome, and of commanding appearance, he seemed wholly out of place among the worn-out specimens of humanity who were, for the time being, his companions. He As I pushed my plate from me, he took from the inner pocket of his coat (which was of fine, foreign-looking material) a small vial; then pouring a few drops of dark liquid from it into a glass of water, passed it to me, and told me to drink. He spoke with a slight accent, barely noticeable; but his language was singularly pure. I felt ashamed of my momentary hesitation, as I saw the dark color rise to his bronzed cheeks; for his eyes were frank, brown eyes, having, I noted at the time, a remarkable brilliancy. I drank the liquor and returned the glass, observing, as I did so, on the third finger of his left hand a curious gold ring of singularly reddish gold, hammered rudely into the form of a serpent, with sparkling ruby eyes. When I rose to go, my chance acquaintance rose, and joined me at the door, and we walked down the street together. Though not by any means a small man, I felt insignificant beside him, for he was head and shoulders taller than I, with the physique of an athlete—as I had cause to remember long after. VOL. VI.-2. For many weeks we met daily, and once, in a mood of confidence and anxiety-for my affairs seemed to grow more hopelessly entangled as I saw more of Alice-I invited him to my simple quarters, and in response to a sympathy and influence he seemed to exert over me, told him my history and position. He listened attentively, then ran his hand thoughtfully through his rich curly hair. "Is this Alice, this Miss Baxter, beautiful, my friend?" "Lovely as a dream!" I cried enthusiastically. "Good?" "As an angel!" I cried. "Well," I hesitated, "she has many admirers, but I think she is not indifferent to me." “Then,” he continued soberly, "so far, so well. I think I can direct you to a way to fortune." "How?" I questioned eagerly, glancing round my shabby little room. "Tell me, I beg of you." "Hush," he replied, significantly putting his finger to his lips. "The walls are thin; we may be heard. This is a secret between you and me. Draw your chair up by the window, closer, so-there can be no eavesdropping there; it is too high. My friend, there is a fortune in store for you-an immense fortune—for you and me.” His eyes snapped brilliantly, and he leaned back in his chair to see the effect of his announcement. "Where?" I cried, striving to control my excitement. "In the mines," he murmured softly; "in the gold mines of Arizona. I had just returned here when I first met you at Taglionini's, with assays and rich specimens in my pocket, to see if I could raise capital to work my rich discovery. A very little I needbut no; these people are too occupied to pay attention to me. And yet, my friend, there are millions in it, which would make the fortune of the wealthiest of them a mere bagatelle in comparison." |