bership with Them from 1840 to iS4rj was written by William Hall. It was
entered for copyright by William McNair on October 30, 1851, and was
published in Cincinnati the following year by J. Hart and Company. The
feeling in California against the Mormons is further indicated by the fact
that one of the early imprints of Los Angeles was entitled Mormon Politics
and Policy, Political and Judicial Acts of the Mormon Authorities in San
Bernardino, California, Proceedings of Public Meetings to Counteract the
Influence of Mormon Doctrines as Taught to the Indians. This small pamphlet was printed at the office of El Clamor Publico, Francisco P. Ramirez
and Co., printers, in 1856.
By 1 85 1 interest in California as a permanent residence is evidenced by a group of titles on the resources, the economic future and the problems of land ownership. John J. Werth's Dissertation on the Resources and Policy of California was published by St. Clair and Pinkham in 1851, one of the few titles printed at Benicia. A number of residents, including John Charles Fremont, Edward F. Beale, Hall McAllister, and William D. M. Howard, had urged Werth to embody the substance of a series of letters that he had contributed to the Alt a California into a more permanent form. James M. Crane in his The Past, the Present and the Future of the Pacific expressed the attitude of settlers who were impatient with the Federal Government for its failure to provide military roads, railroads and telegraph lines across the continent. The book was an elaboration of two lectures delivered by Crane in San Francisco. The Settlers' Guide by George W. Gift, published at Benicia and reprinted three years later at Stockton, is a summary of federal and state laws relating to preemption claims in California. Gift was a midshipman on the St. Mary and visited California in 1848. He later left the Navy and lived in Sacramento, San Rafael, and Napa.
A series of titles descriptive of western types— the miner, the gambler, the desperado— began with the publication in 1 85 3 of Alonzo Delano's Pen Knife Sketches or Chips of the Old Block, followed by his Old Block's Sketch Book or Tales of California Life. Both were illustrated by Charles Nahl, "the Cruikshank of California," to quote from the title page of the latter, and both were among the "best sellers" of the fifties. California Characters by Whittlestick and Mining Scenes and Sketches by an Old Miner is attributed to Henry C. Williston. It was published by Bonestell and Williston, Wide West Office, San Francisco, 1855. Another book published anonymously was George Denny or Sketches of Life in the Far West by Chinquopin. P. P. Hull and Company published this at the Town Talk office, San Francisco, 1856. In a somewhat different vein, John RoUin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, by Yellow Bird was registered for copyright on June 3, 1854.
Calif ornians loved to sing, if we may judge from the quantity of song books and sheet music copyrighted. On November 15, 1852, George Faw-
