two thousand bushels of choice fruits. Amid the continual demands upon his time, Mr. Selby finds leisure for a personal supervision of this extensive property, which, for its genial climate and quiet pastoral beauty, is a favorite resort after the cares of the day, in preference to his city residence. Adorned with every appliance that art and refined taste can suggest, this mansion is the summer retreat of the family, and while its fortunate proprietor may felicitate himself in the contemplation of a successful and honorable business career, he is equally happy in the companionship of that personal loveliness and amiability which, when they grace the social circle, hallow and endear the sacred name of home. Under Mr. Selby, San Francisco entered upon a new era of prosperity. Conciliatory and popular in manners, liberal alike in theory and practice, with a record for integrity that has always stood above the breath of suspicion, and thoroughly conversant with the requirements of the city where he has spent his best years, he commenced his official duties under the most favorable auspices, and his term as Mayor, when reviewed hereafter, will exhibit the same beneficent motives and practical intelligence that have hitherto guided his actions in the walks of private and public life.

JAMES NISBET AND FRANKLIN TUTHILL.

N the month of August, 1865, the San Francisco Evening Bulletin chronicled a loss which is quite remarkable in the history of journalism on the Pacific coast. Two of its proprietors and leading editors, who had done much to give the paper the high character it still maintains, were lost to it by death-the one by a dreadful marine disaster on the northern coast, the other by disease on the eastern side of the continent, and both within a few days of each other. James Nisbet, who was long the news and literary editor of the paper, and who deserves a place in this work as the first historian of San Francisco, was lost at sea on the steamship Brother Jonathan, July 30th, 1865. This vessel was on the way from San Francisco to Victoria, V. I., with almost two hundred souls on board, when she struck a sunken rock off St. George's Point, eight or ten miles north-west from Crescent City, and went down about forty-five minutes afterwards. All on board were lost except about a score of persons. Among the passengers who perished, besides Mr. Nisbet, were Maj. Gen. George W. Wright, of the United States Army, and wife; Gen. A. C. Henry, of Washington Territory; Major E. W. Eddy, of the United States Army, several other army and navy officers, and a number of citizens of California prominent for worth and talent. Amid the terrible scene transpiring around him at the wreck, and with the horror of sudden death staring him in the face, with hardly a possibility that it would be averted, Mr. Nisbet was calm and thoughtful enough to write out

a will in pencil, and to address notes of farewell to some of his friends, even remembering some children of whom he was fond by their pet names. The act was characteristic of his unselfish and courageous nature. His remains were recovered, brought to San Francisco, and interred in Lone Mountain Cemetery, where rest those of his former associates on the Bulletin-its founder, James King of Wm., C. J. Bartlett, and C. O. Gerberding, who preceded him a few years.

Mr. Nisbet was born in Glasgow, Scotland, about the year 1817. His parents were of high respectability and considerable fortune, and he enjoyed during youth every desirable opportunity for that intellectual training which developed his naturally vigorous mind to form a very useful character. On arriving at the proper age, he chose the profession of law, and after graduating, traveled over the principal countries of Europe. Subsequently he became a partner in a prominent Glasgow firm of lawyers. He was more inclined to seek literary pursuits than to contend for the rights of clients in the legal tribunals, and always abstained from appearing as an advocate. His strong tendency to literature is shown by the fact, known to only a few intimate friends, that he was the author of an elaborate and meritorious novel, published before leaving Scotland, under the title of The Seige of Palmyra. He always cherished the purpose of devoting himself to some literary work that might give him a permanent reputation. In about the year 1852, having previously lost a considerable property by an unfortunate investment in railroad stock, he decided to seek a reparation of his fortune in some remote portion of the world, where there might be better opportunities for profitable personal exertion than in his native land. With this view he first visited Australia, but was disappointed in the aspect of affairs there presented, and after spending a few weeks in inspecting the gold mines, returned to England. A few weeks later he set sail for California, where he arrived in November, 1852. In San Francisco he first found employment in writing a work historical and descriptive of this city-the well known Annals of San Francisco, in the authorship of

which Frank Soulé, Esq., and Dr. J. H. Gihon were associated, though Mr. Nisbet did a large part of the work. The writing for this was very hasty, and he never attached any value to it, although time is giving it considerable interest. While engaged on the Annals his industry, discriminating judgment, and power thoroughly to perform great intellectual labor, at once surprised and delighted his employers and associates in the book, one of whom, Mr. Soulé, about the same time became part proprietor of a prominent daily newspaper, The California Chronicle, to which circumstance is due the fact that Mr. Nisbet, while still engaged on the Annals, was transferred to a desk in the editorial rooms of that paper. He continued in that position until March, 1856, when, at the solicitation of James King of Wm., he accepted a higher position on the Bulletin, and ultimately became one of its proprietors. For nine years afterward, until the date of his fatal voyage, he filled the position of supervising editor of the Bulletin, evincing great industry, taste, judgment and devotion. He was a purist in the matter of selections and language, a singularly independent critic in literature, music and the drama, and master of a terse, vigorous English style. His theory of journalism was above passion and personality, and conformed to the honorable rules which regulate the intercourse of gentlemen. Although he did not write the leading editorials, and never wrote on political topics at all, confining his labors almost exclusively to the news desk and the supervision of other departments, he used his influence to modify the asperities of contests that the paper could not avoid. Puffery in any degree found in him a stern foe, and he was almost morbidly sensitive lest the paper should be prostituted to unworthy uses, its reading columns made a medium for personal or business matters, or its advertising columns opened to any kind of impurity. He elevated the paper into an ideal institution, with a strict code of morals to which all were made to conform. In his own character he possessed the best elements to maintain the peculiar authority he exercised in the office. He led a pure and chaste life, free from every vice, and was possessed of a

singularly robust constitution. "His innate love of justice was so great that no personal friendship could tempt him. to desert the right or excuse a wrong; and yet he loved his friends with a devotion that was not counterbalanced by hatred for enemies. No journalist of this country was ever so continuously reviled for the faults or pretended faults of others, and yet he would not deviate in the slightest degree from the straight line to seek redress for an injury. Those who made themselves his enemies he wished to forget and dismiss from recollection. If he had a weakness, it was extreme sensitiveness as to his personal honor. He freely confessed that he could never clothe himself in iron mail so as not to feel the effects of unjust criticism--indulgence in which he characterized as peculiarly American-and this sensitiveness becoming known to newspaper men generally, served to incite attacks from that class of them who, having no independent reasoning powers or ideas of justice, are ever seeking opportunities for notoriety by stinging whatever innocent and unresisting objects can be made to feel their spite." Although, as stated above, he was not one of the leading writers of the paper, and was not responsible for its political course, he was yet held accountable, during several years, for whatever in its columns provoked animosity, and was made the victim of some of the cruelest slander. When he died, his surviving partners said of him: "It is due to justice that we now admit and chronicle the fact, that any excellencies which the Bulletin has heretofore possessed resulted from Mr. Nisbet's labors more than from those of any other person, while he is perhaps responsible for fewer of its faults than any of the other writers that were immediately associated with him. It was his labor that made the Bulletin instructive and attractive in its news and literary departments; his finishing strokes were seen in almost every column, all of which he made consistent one with the other. The editorials upon local and national politics and upon the passing topics of the day, many of which have doubtless provoked a multitude of resentments, were none of them the production of Mr. Nisbet. He engaged in no strife, assailed no one, was offensive to no