Newton Booth of California. By Lauren E. Crane. (G. P.
Putman's Sons.)—Newton Booth, sometime Governor of California and United States Senator for California, seems to have been a true orator, with the gift of real and spontaneous eloquence. We learn that during early life he committed his speeches partly to memory, latterly he spoke extempore. He was born in 1825 in Indiana, and went to California in 1860, and on several momentous occasions raised a powerful voice. The speeches, which occupy
the greater part of the volume, prove Senator Booth to have been a scholar gifted with a rich imagination, a great command of language, and a graceful and finished style. It seems, and the preface also hints this, that he was hardly appreciated during
his lifetime. His speeches, indeed, appear too polished and barely nervous enough to have carried his hearers away with him. He did a great deal towards the preservation of order in California, and the strengthening of the Federal position in the West.
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