Transcription:
2 element that will prevent or extinguish fires, drive away trespassers, and otherwise by an insensible magic preserve order
in the reservation. It is even suggested that the troopers might take an occasional scout through the Park; but I am astonished
that so much of a concession is granted by those who believe in the wonderful influence of a shoulder-trap and a sabre. An
occasional scout however, by the troopers and their lieutenants would, to anybody who knows the mountains, be simply a source
of merriment. The trouble is that the proposal to run the Park by means of a military camp is made by those who have not the
first syllable of knowledge of mountaineering, and the special conditions of the Yosemite reservation. Their acquaintance
extends no further (if so far) than the highway to Yosemite Valley, and they forget altogether that the reservation is a very
large territory of the roughest possible character, and that while the lieutenants would be showing their uniforms to the
ladies at the hotels, and while the troopers would be dress-parading for the amusement of tourists, or even riding gallantly
along the road, the fires and the sheep would be going through their exercises in all other parts of the reservation, just
as usual. If the Park proposition is to be t illegible ed into that kind of a humbug, I want to be clear of any share of the
ridicule that will fall on those who have encouraged the proposition. And I mean to take good care to so clear myself.