992 p.; calf -backed marbled boards. Sacramento: James Allen, State Printer, 1857. The Eighth was a difficult session as revealed by Governor J. Neely Johnson's 17 page message. This was the first session following the 1856 vigilance committee activities in San Francisco and state problems were further exacerbated by the actions of State Treasurer Henry Bates. As Bancroft writes in Vol. VI, p. 647: "A deficit had been discovered in the accounts of State Treasurer S.A. McMeans. His successor, Henry Bates, improved upon such a mere peccadillo as a discrepancy in accounts, and launched wholesale into a violation of all law and all trust, by purchasing and assisting others to purchase state warrants, controller's warrants, and state scrip of every kind, with the coin and bullion of the state. His own profits from this mode of unlawful speculation aggregated for 1856 about $15,000. The law requiring the public moneys to be kept in the fire-proof vault of the capital, and forbidding its deposit with any individual or firm was disregarded, and Palmer, Cook & Co. again became the holders without security of $88,520, interest money due in New York on the state's bonds, but which they retained for their own use, the firm failing, and most of its members and agents absconding..." Paper varies.

E-mail a friend about this item.

Return to Catalog