Some misguided friends, perhaps concerned altogether too much by the importance of the present, have insisted that the undersigned should make an ass of himself by adding some memoranda to the chest which is to be opened one hundred years from the present time. Possibly for those of us of the present it might be better that the doings of the present time should be closed and entombed forever in this chest and not for posterity.

To a practical person it looks as if this was an attempt to forestall the opinion of the next century in regard to those of today, and seems to the undersigned an attempt to juggle the evidence. I fear that the best face upon all matters will be incorporated amongst the treasures of this chest and I am inclined to think that there may be, unconsciously, an attempt to conceal some matters which it would be necessary for the citizen of the next century to have presented to him in order to give an unbiased opinion of our importance.

I fancy this memoranda will be of very little importance, but perchance some "dry-as-dust" may desire to delve into the matters of the past century and these items may assist him in a small way to deduce an opinion not unfavorable to us.

While on the bench of the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of Colorado several cases of present importance, at least, came under the attention of the undersigned. Notably, as a matter of law and practice, the commitment of one James Doyle to the "County Bastile" because of his refusal to obey an order of Court. The matter was purely a legal one and was contested in the courts as a legal question, but in the newspapers, the "yellow journals" and the populist sheets, the matter became a personal one and attacks were made upon the Judge because of the commitment. Unfortunately the matter was not judicially determined by the upper courts, whether the District Court was correct in the commitment, because the parties settled the matter out of court. Possibly some lawyer-if in the next century there are such creatures as lawyers-may interest himself enough to see whether the Judge who committed Doyle was correct or not.

The case of The Ajax Gold Mining Company vs. The Calhoun Gold Mining Company was one of considerable importance at the time, settling a number of vexed mining questions and was of enough importance to be affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Some other matters which looking forward, will be of but trifling moment to consider, caused a slight blaze at the time, but if the same advancement in civilization is made in the coming century that has been made in the past, all these trifling questions of today will not be of enough interest to the next century to note.

All other burning questions of the day and the personal contests and troubles of the present are of too little importance to waste the time of the undersigned or posterity.

Horace G. Lunt