Hesperothen; Notes from the West, Vol. II (of 2)

n in Public Life-Crime on the Western Borders-The Great Rebelli

ourse of Empire

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close the dram

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and light fought. For them Science has trimmed her lamp-for them martyrs have died-for them Europe and Asia have been in toil and travail for countless generations, and they have been guided across the sea to a grand continent where it would seem as if Nature had been engaged for myriads of ages to provide for their happiness and grandeur-all climes and all products are theirs-the bounteous plain, the ore-filled mountain, the treasures of the deep, the heaven-made ways by lake and river, and it would be a despair for all mankind if they misuse their glorious inheritance, and if all the nations of the world see that the pillar of fire in the west was but an ignis fatuus dancing before their aching eyes in a Serboni

he National system is by no means satisfactory. Mr. R. G. White affirms that the system is a failure; and high authorities assert that "any comparison between the results obtained in the public schools of New York, Cincinnati, and Boston, with those of such public grammar schools of England, as Bedford, Manchester, and the City of London, is simply ridiculous." The teachers are continually shifting, and when the teachers, as they do in this land of liberty, go away, the schools are deserted, the constant services of a staff cannot be retained unless there is very considerable increase in the rate of payment now made to the male and female teachers. None of these in any State have, I think, more than about 9l. per month. Mr. White says that "the mass of the pupils of the public schools are unable to read intelligently, to spell correctly, to write legibly, to describe the geography of their own country, or do anything that reasonably well educated children do with ease; and they cannot write a simple letter, they cannot do readily a simple sum in practical arithmetic, they cannot tell the meaning of any but the commonest of words they read and spell so ill. They can give rules glibly, they can recite from memory, they have some dry knowledge of the various ologies and osophies, they can, some of them, read a little French or German with very bad accent; but, as to all real education, they are as helpless and as barren as if they had never crossed the threshold of a schoolhouse." It is from American writers that these accusations ag

ny authority but that of the schoolmaster. It would be lamentable to have to admit that free education is associated with the weakening of parental influence. Theoretically, there is nothing in the American system to prevent the teaching of religious and moral duties by parents at home

with it, which its friends claim for it in the States. There is reason to believe that the standard of morality has not been uniformly high in the political world, and that in the public intelligence the judiciary does not aspire to an absolute immunity from suspicion. Even in the old settled States, legislators from time

e force with which Americans could retort if they were so minded, and how they could point to the reports of election judges which set forth the prevalence of extensive bribery, led to the suspension of writs, and will perhaps end in the disfranchisement of some ancient and populous boroughs and constituencies in England, and to the speeches of Sir Henry James in Parliament, to cast any stone out of my glass house on that score; but I do not think it can be established that persons in a position at all analogous to that of the members of a State Legislature have been purchased wholesale in England, Ireland or Scotland, or that even a complete Borough Corp

the strangers in the land who are unable to use its language and are unacquainted with its politics." Mr. Parton describes with humour one of these "bosses," an improvement on the pugilists and cormorant thieves of a remote period. "The Emerald Isle gave him birth; the streets of New York, education. To see the brawny, good-tempered Irishman walking abroad in his district when politics are active is to get an idea of how the chief of a clan strode his native heath when a marauding expedition was on foot. He lives in a handsome house, and has more property than any man has ever been able to get by legitimate service to the United States. He treats his dependants and retainers nobly, but as the agent and organiser of spoliation he is a prey to every minor scoundrel, for at certain seasons he dare not say no to any living creature. And yet it requires tact, self-possession and resource to move about among needy people with a pocket full of money, an embodied "yes," and have some of it left after the election. The strikers, as they are called, go for solid cash now instead of target companies and clambakes for which the candidates paid the bills." "Money, money," exclaims Mr. Parton, "everywhere in politics, in prodigal abundance, money, except where it could secure and reward good service for the public, hecatombs for the wolves, precarious bones for the watchdogs." The details in the article are precise, and if they are to be trusted it may be doubted whether the claims of the United States to possess a cheap government can be maintained, for it is not cheap to pay responsible executive officers a precari

," he says, "when I see the strong men who have gone down, of the Red Dragon in Revelation, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon its head, drawing the third part of the stars of heaven after it." And therefore he proceeds to preach against bribery. He thought it was the right time, "because the Legislature in New York is busy in investigating charges of bribery. The whole country woke up in holy horror at the charge that two thousand dollars had been offered to influence a vote in the Legislature, as if this was something new; as though in one State nine hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars had not been paid a legislator of the State Government by a railway company to get its charter and secure a dedication of public lands; as though three-quarters of the legislators of the United States had not, through bribery, gone into putrefaction whose stench reached heaven. After a few weeks' hunting the squirrel has stolen the hickory nut. Gentlemen in New York hunt out wrong by day and play poker and old sledge at night at Delavan House. It was like the country which had spent six millions of dollars in lawsuits about William Tweed going suddenly into hysterics when it found out that he had stolen a box of steel pens. California is submerged in the grip of a great monopoly; in Kansas United States senators had been involved in charges of bribery; in Connecticut an election to Congress was bought as men might buy a box of strawberries. Last year they were convicted of attempting bribery in Pennsylvania, but the Court of Pardons liberated them with the exception of two judges, who were told that they would be cut off from political preferment for their obstinacy. A Pennsylvania United States senator used to put a price on legislators just as a Kentuckian puts a price on his horse." But it was not legislators alone that Dr. Talmage attacked. He declared that the railways, the common carriers of the country, were tainted by a favouritism which was, in fact, the result of bribery. One company made rebates in its fares to some favoured corporat

the law-abiding, virtuous people of the settled States. I was not, however, prepared for misrepresentation. One would have thought that I accused the kind hosts who had received us-our generous entertainers in so many cities-the courteous, polished gentlemen who accompanied us-of murder and robbery, and ascribed to them the brutal murders committed by Canty or the Kid. As I quoted chapter and verse, and as the papers which vilified me could not deny the statements, they wrote that I had been imposed upon by the vivid fancy-in other phrase, the deliberate lying-of their brother editors in the West. One organ had the effrontery to declare that the Duke of

the courtesy, ready service, and hospitality everywhere accorded to the party of English travellers of which I was one, to write one word which I thought calculated to give pain or offence to any of our many friends or to any right-minded American. Macul? solis! 'Tis a pity they are there! In a few ye

est the "saloons," as they are called, with which every western settlement is sure to be provided as soon as the shingle roofs are placed on the earliest upheaval of deal planks which can be called a dwelling, have far greater immunity and freedom than burglars or robbers. Wherever the train stopped for water on our journey in New Mexico, Western Colorado, or Eastern California, a rectangular wooden box, with a verandah, open doors, windows screened by a muslin curtain, perhaps a flagstaff with the Stars and Stripes flying, a large signboard, and some high-sounding name-the "Grand Alliance," "Union League," "El Dorado," "Harmonium," "Arcadia," or the like-was visible, with the usual group of booted and bear

oker;" that "a searching party under Captain Leper had overhauled Hamilton, Myers and Brown, the outlaws who shot Sheriff Davis and Collector Hatter at Poplar Bluff, Mo.; killed Hamilton, mortally wounded Myers, and made Brown a prisoner;" that "James Hurd shot Jeff Anderson at Alamosa, Col., and that it was feared the latter would not survive." An account of the death of "Curly Bill," a notorious desperado, leader of cowboys and murderer of Marshal White, who was killed at Caleyville, Arizona, by his comrade, Jem Wallace, followed. They had a quarrel (of course, in a saloon). After a few drinks "Curly Bill" said, "I guess I will kill you on general principles." Wallace stepped out of the saloon and immediately opened fire, inflicting a mortal wound on his foe. After a brief hearing Wallace was discharged, and left for parts unknown. Then it was related how "Thomas Clarey ('Tommy the Kid'), a Durango outlaw, was killed by a comrade named Eskridge at Annego while drunk." A fratricide and three trials for murder were duly recorded. Another paper gave an account of South-West Colorado from the lips of a recent visitor to San Juan County. "Are you going back to San Juan? No, I think not; but it is a glorious country. The men there are a little rough, and kill each other on slight provocation; but a peaceable man who does not swagger and blow is not molested. There is no law, and courts and constables are unknown." He narrates how Aleck --, acting as a barkeeper, "a noble-hearted, jovial fellow, full of fun, who looked you square in the eye, owns mines, said to be worth a million," settled a difficulty; I am inclined to think Mr. Charles Klunk rather drew on the interviewing reporter of the Globe Democrat. He was, he said, going to see a stockman who lived about fifty miles from the house where he was visiting. A farmer said to him "Come and take a drink with me, and I'll show you the barkeeper who killed the man you are going to see an hour ago." The stockman had come into the saloon whilst Aleck was in the back room, and began to abuse him. Aleck heard him, opened on the man with a revolver, and "shot him full of holes. Next day I asked him what he was going to do about it, and he said he had been tried and acquitted, which meant that some of the leading men had told him that he had done right. There was no trial about it. When a man kills another out there in a fight they don't inquire very strictly into the circumstances, but make up their minds that they can't bring the dead man to life by hanging the killer, so nothing is done about it. But when a man murders another to rob him, the vigilants turn out and have no mercy on him. They just fill his skin with lead and tumble him into a hole like a wolf. After all, though the bears are plentiful in the spring, you can kill a deer 100 yards from the house where you like, the streams are alive with trout, the vegetables and crops splendid." Mr. Charles Klunk's resolution not to go back to this Happy Valley seems founded on sound constitutional principles. What I wish to point out is the condition in which the Central Government and State Governments have permitted many districts of New Mexico, Colorado, and California to remain. It is plain that the peculiar conditions under which the sway of the United States has been extended over the regions of the Far West have rendered it very difficult to establish the machinery for protecting life and property and punishing crime; but I do not see that the statesmen at Washington or the legislators at the State capitals are very much concerned at the reign of terror which prevails on the borders, or that they seek to impress on their people any regard for the sacredness of life. In fact, human life is almost a drug in the market. And I write fully sensible of the failures of our own and of all European Governments to repress crime, to prevent violence, and to ensure security to life and property. I am aware that Ireland and Poland are to the fore, and that wife-beating and "running kicks" illustrate the brutality of Lancashire and other districts-that London has its Alsatias, that every European capital has foul recesses in which the only laws are those of crime. All the world is busy preparing shoals of emigrants for the United States. It is only, however, when some savage outbreak affrighting the propriety of a great city arouses indignation and fear that there is a clamour for measures of repression. I do not think there is in any other part of the world, or that there ever has been in any civilised country, such shootings as have filled the land to which I allude with bloodshed. It may be said with truth that there never have been and that there are not any similar conditions in the world. But the absence of any great abiding movement for the correction and suppression of violence and lawlessness cannot be so readily accounted for or excused. There appears to be a sort of admiration for these border ruffians among portions of the American Press and public. Even a staid paper like the Republican, in an article headed "South-East Missouri: the Reign of Lawlessness about Ended," on the destruction of the New Madrid gang, writes of one who was sent to the penitentiary for thirty years "as a living monument of a bold and brave lot of desperate men who had started out to make money by robbing their fellow-men. This swift and stern justice speaks well for this portion of the States, which has had for a long time more than its full quota of these lawless characters. Myers and Brown will be hung on the 15th July, and their execution will be witnessed by thousands of South-East Missourians." The spectacle of the hanging will not do much good, if it be like the execution at Colorado Springs, which was advertised as a sort of picnic or pleasure excursion. One advertisement ran, "After the hanging to-morrow drink La Salle beer; it will cool your nerves." "Highway robbery here has about run its course, and the people are determined that lawlessness in those regions shall no longer go unwhipped of justice." Very good. But, why not sooner and long ago? "Rhodes was hung by Judge Lynch when captured at the killing of young Laforge in New Madrid;" but the gang killed the sheriff and wounded the deputy-sheriff and collector before the people arose in their majesty to squelch them. A criminal is invested with a notoriety which, next to popular estimation, is valued by some men, and it is noted with interest that "Gilbert" (one pitiless murderer) is a Catholic, and that "Rosengrants" (another homicide) "inclines towards the Episcopalians." A Leadville doctor visits one of them to ask for his body. "No, sirree, you can't have my body; I'll be hanged first!" And the public laugh at the lively sally, and admire the sangfroid of the wit! In fact, there is a tendresse for crime in this grim humour. A Texan who would "fill the skin" of a stranger "with lead" for aspersing Texas would no doubt heartily enjoy the description of the early population of the Lone Star State, which I quote from the Texas Press. "In the early days of the Republic, and even after annexation, many of the white men who came here had strong sanitary reasons for a change of climate, having been threatened with throat disease

oversies are kept alive, and, for the defeated, are stirred up incessantly by anniversaries and celebrations, natural but, if it be the object of Americans, as many of them assure us it is, to let the memory of the past die out like that of a horrid dream, impolitic. The spirit which animated the Southern States is neither dead nor sleeping. But there are no end of G. A. P. and G. A. R. Associations flourishing their bann

a reasonably long list of fighting successes to commemorate, their anniversaries are mostly left to the almanacks. The other day the Americans had a celebration of the Battle of Cowpens, wherein the heroic Morgan gave the diabolical Tarleton the deuce of a whipping. I wond

e grade he occupies by conduct and courage during the war; and if he is known among his friends by the title of "Colonel," he deserves, probably, the brevet conferred upon him by the authority of the general public around him. The conductor of the train on the Pennsylvania Railroad, to whose attention we were so much indebted, was an ex-officer of volunteers, was engaged at the first battle of Bull Run, where he was wounded, and in sev

they were exposed or to a sense of their greatness as a nation that it be due, it is to be commended. Exce

ical relations of the Republic and Great Britain in times gone by, moved those who behave with so much courtesy to Englishmen, and that they seem to say, sotto voce, "Come and see how I forget the wrongs done to the United States by the Ministers of George III. and his successors