MINERS’ LAW
The miners on the creek were nearly all Americans, and exhibited a great
variety of mankind. Some, it was very evident, were men who had hitherto
only worked with their heads; others one would have set down as having
been mechanics of some sort, and as having lived in cities; and there
were numbers of unmistakable backwoodsmen and farmers from the Western
States. Of these a large proportion were Missourians, who had emigrated
across the plains. From the State of Missouri the people had flocked in
thousands to the gold diggings, and particularly from a county in that
state called Pike County.
The peculiarities of the Missourians are very strongly marked, and after
being in the mines but a short time, one could distinguish a Missourian,
or a “Pike,” or “Pike County,” as they are called, from the natives of
any other western State. Their costume was always exceedingly old and
greasy-looking; they had none of the occasional foppery of the miner,
which shows itself in brilliant red shirts, boots with flaming red tops,
fancy-colored hats, silver-handled bowie-knives, and rich silk sashes.
It always seemed to me that a Missourian wore the same clothes in which
he had crossed the plains, and that he was keeping them to wear on his
journey home again. Their hats were felt, of a dirty-brown color, and
the shape of a short extinguisher. Their shirts had perhaps, in days
gone by, been red, but were now a sort of purple; their pantaloons were
generally of a snuffy-brown color, and made of some woolly home-made
fabric. Suspended at their back from a narrow strap buckled round the
waist they carried a wooden-handled bowie-knife in an old leathern
sheath, not stitched, but riveted with leaden nails; and over their
shoulders they wore strips of cotton or cloth as suspenders--mechanical
contrivances never thought of by any other men in the mines. As for
their boots, there was no peculiarity about them, excepting that they
were always old. Their coats, a garment not frequently seen in the mines
for at least six months of the year, were very extraordinary
things--exceedingly tight, short-waisted, long-skirted surtouts of
homemade frieze of a greyish-blue color.
As for their persons, they were mostly long, gaunt, narrow-chested,
round-shouldered men, with long, straight, light-colored,
dried-up-looking hair, small thin sallow faces, with rather scanty beard
and moustache, and small grey sunken eyes, which seemed to be keenly
perceptive of everything around them. But in their movements the men
were slow and awkward, and in the towns especially they betrayed a
childish astonishment at the strange sights occasioned by the presence
of the divers nations of the earth. The fact is, that till they came to
California many of them had never in their lives before seen two houses
together, and in any little village in the mines they witnessed more of
the wonders of civilization than ever they had dreamed of.
In some respects, perhaps, the mines of California were as wild a place
as any part of the Western States of America; but they were peopled by a
community of men of all classes, and from different countries, who
though living in a rough backwoods style, had nevertheless all the ideas
and amenities of civilized life; while the Missourians, having come
direct across the plains from their homes in the backwoods, had received
no preparatory education to enable them to show off to advantage in such
company.
And in this they labored under a great disadvantage, as compared with
the lower classes of people of every country who came to San Francisco
by way of Panama or Cape Horn. The men from the interior of the States
learned something even on their journey to New York or New Orleans,
having their eyes partially opened during the few days they spent in
either of those cities en route; and on the passage to San Francisco
they naturally received a certain degree of polish from being violently
shaken up with a crowd of men of different habits and ideas from their
own. They had to give way in many things to men whose motives of action
were perhaps to them incomprehensible, while of course they gained a few
new ideas from being brought into close contact with such sorts of men
as they had hitherto only seen at a distance, or very likely had never
heard of. A little experience of San Francisco did them no harm, and by
the time they reached the mines they had become very superior men to the
raw bumpkins they were before leaving their homes.
It may seem strange, but it is undoubtedly true, that the majority of
men in whom such a change was most desirable became in California more
humanized, and acquired a certain amount of urbanity; in fact, they came
from civilized countries in the rough state, and in California got
licked into shape, and polished.
I had subsequently, while residing on the Isthmus of Nicaragua, constant
opportunities of witnessing the truth of this, in contrasting the
outward-bound emigrants with the same class of men returning to the
States after having received a California education. Every fortnight two
crowds of passengers rushed across the Isthmus, one from New York, the
other from San Francisco. The great majority in both cases were men of
the lower ranks of life, and it is of course to them alone that my
remarks apply. Those coming from New York--who were mostly Americans and
Irish--seemed to think that each man could do just as he pleased,
without regard to the comfort of his neighbors. They showed no
accommodating spirit, but grumbled at everything, and were rude and
surly in their manners; they were very raw and stupid, and had no genius
for doing anything for themselves or each other to assist their
progress, but perversely delighted in acting in opposition to the
regulations and arrangements made for them by the Transit Company. The
same men, however, on their return from California, were perfect
gentlemen in comparison. They were orderly in their behavior; though
rough, they were not rude, and showed great consideration for others,
submitting cheerfully to any personal inconvenience necessary for the
common good, and showing by their conduct that they had acquired some
notion of their duties to balance the very enlarged idea of their
rights which they had formerly entertained.
The Missourians, however, although they acquired no new accomplishments
on their journey to California, lost none of those which they originally
possessed. They could use an ax or a rifle with any man. Two of them
would chop down a few trees and build a log cabin in a day and a half,
and with their long five-foot-barrel rifle, which was their constant
companion, they could “draw a bead” on a deer, a squirrel, or the white
of an Indian’s eye, with equal coolness and certainty of killing.
Though large-framed men, they were not remarkable for physical strength,
nor were they robust in constitution; in fact, they were the most sickly
set of men in the mines, fever and ague and diarrhœa being their
favorite complaints.
We had many pleasant neighbors, and among them were some very amusing
characters. One man, who went by the name of the “Philosopher,” might
possibly have earned a better right to the name, if he had had the
resolution to abstain from whisky. He had been, I believe, a farmer in
Kentucky, and was one of a class not uncommon in America, who, without
much education, but with great ability and immense command of language,
together with a very superficial knowledge of some science, hold forth
on it most fluently, using such long words, and putting them so well
together, that, were it not for the crooked ideas they enunciated, one
might almost suppose they knew what they were talking about.
Phrenology was this man’s hobby, and he had all the phrenological
phraseology at his finger-ends. His great delight was to paw a man’s
head and to tell him his character. One Sunday morning he came into our
cabin as he was going down to the store for provisions, and after a few
minutes’ conversation, of course he introduced phrenology; and as I knew
I should not get rid of him till I did so, I gave him my permission to
feel my head. He fingered it all over, and gave me a very elaborate
synopsis of my character, explaining most minutely the consequences of
the combination of the different bumps, and telling me how I would act
in a variety of supposed contingencies. Having satisfied himself as to
my character, he went off, and I was in hopes I was done with him, but
an hour or so after dark, he came rolling into the cabin just as I was
going to turn in. He was as drunk as he well could be; his nose was
swelled and bloody, his eyes were both well blackened, and altogether he
was very unlike a learned professor of phrenology. He begged to be
allowed to stay all night; and as he would most likely have broken his
neck over the rocks if he had tried to reach his own home that night, I
made him welcome, thinking that he would immediately fall asleep without
troubling me further. But I was very much mistaken; he had no sooner
lain down, than he began to harangue me as if I were a public meeting or
a debating society, addressing me as “gentlemen,” and expatiating on a
variety of topics, but chiefly on phrenology, the Democratic ticket, and
the great mass of the people. He had a bottle of brandy with him, which
I made him finish in hopes it might have the effect of silencing him;
but there was unfortunately not enough of it for that--it only made him
worse, for he left the debating society and got into a bar-room, where,
when I went to sleep, he was playing “poker” with some imaginary
individual whom he called Jim.
In the morning he made most ample apologies, and was very earnest in
expressing his gratitude for my hospitality. I took the liberty of
asking him what bumps he called those in the neighborhood of his eyes.
“Well, sir,” he said, “you ask me a plain question, I’ll give you a
plain answer. I got into a ‘muss’ down at the store last night, and was
whipped; and I deserved it too.” As he was so penitent, I did not press
him for further particulars; but I heard from another man the same day
that when at the store he had taken the opportunity of an audience to
lecture them on his favorite subject, and illustrated his theory by
feeling several heads, and giving very full descriptions of the
characters of the individuals. At last he got hold of a man who must
have had something peculiar in the formation of his cranium, for he gave
him a most dreadful character, calling him a liar, a cheat, and a thief,
and winding up by saying that he was a man who would murder his father
for five dollars.
The natural consequence was that the owner of this enviable character
jumped up and pitched into the phrenologist, giving him the whipping
which he had so candidly acknowledged, and would probably have murdered
him without the consideration of the five dollars, if the bystanders had
not interfered.
Very near where we were at work, a party of half-a-dozen men held a
claim in the bed of the creek, and had as usual dug a race through which
to turn the water, and so leave exposed the part they intended to work.
This they were now anxious to do, as the creek had fallen sufficiently
low to admit of it; but they were opposed by a number of miners whose
claims lay so near the race that they would have been swamped had the
water been turned into it.
They could not come to any settlement of the question among themselves;
so, as was usual in such cases, they concluded to leave it to a jury of
miners; and notice was accordingly sent to all the miners within two or
three miles up and down the creek, requesting them to assemble on the
claim in question the next afternoon. Although a miner calculates an
hour lost as so much money out of his pocket, yet all were interested in
supporting the laws of the diggings; and about a hundred men presented
themselves at the appointed time. The two opposing parties then, having
tossed up for the first pick, chose six jurymen each from the assembled
crowd.
When the jury had squatted themselves all together in an exalted
position on a heap of stones and dirt, one of the plaintiffs, as
spokesman for his party, made a very pithy speech, calling several
witnesses to prove his statements, and citing many of the laws of the
diggings in support of his claims. The defendants followed in the same
manner, making the most of their case; while the general public, sitting
in groups on the different heaps of stones piled up between the holes
with which the ground was honeycombed, smoked their pipes and watched
the proceedings.
After the plaintiff and defendant had said all they had to say about it,
the jury examined the state of the ground in dispute; they then called
some more witnesses to give further information, and having laid their
shaggy heads together for a few minutes, they pronounced their decision;
which was, that the men working on the race should be allowed six days
to work out their claims before the water should be turned in upon them.
Neither party was particularly well pleased with the verdict--a pretty
good sign that it was an impartial one; but they had to abide by it, for
had there been any resistance on either side, the rest of the miners
would have enforced the decision of this august tribunal. From it there
was no appeal; a jury of miners was the highest court known, and I must
say I never saw a court of justice with so little humbug about it.
The laws of the creek, as was the case in all the various diggings in
the mines, were made at meetings of miners held for the purpose. They
were generally very few and simple. They defined how many feet of ground
one man was entitled to hold in a ravine--how much in the bank, and in
the bed of the creek; how many such claims he could hold at a time; and
how long he could absent himself from his claim without forfeiting it.
They declared what was necessary to be done in taking up and securing a
claim which, for want of water, or from any other cause, could not be
worked at the time; and they also provided for various contingencies
incidental to the peculiar nature of the diggings.
Of course, like other laws they required constant revision and
amendment, to suit the progress of the times; and a few weeks after this
trial, a meeting was held one Sunday afternoon for legislative
purposes. The miners met in front of the store to the number of about
two hundred; a very respectable-looking old chap was called to the
chair; but for want of that article of furniture he mounted an empty
pork-barrel, which gave him a commanding position; another man was
appointed secretary, who placed his writing materials on some empty
boxes piled up alongside of the chair. The chairman then, addressing the
crowd, told them the object for which the meeting had been called, and
said he would be happy to hear any gentleman who had any remarks to
offer; whereupon some one proposed an amendment of the law relating to a
certain description of claim, arguing the point in a very neat speech.
He was duly seconded, and there was some slight opposition and
discussion; but when the chairman declared it carried by the ayes, no
one called for a division, so the secretary wrote it all down, and it
became law.
Two or three other acts were passed, and when the business was
concluded, a vote of thanks to the chairman was passed for his able
conduct on the top of the pork-barrel. The meeting was then declared to
be dissolved, and accordingly dribbled into the store, where the
legislators, in small detachments, pledged each other in cocktails as
fast as the storekeeper could mix them. While the legislature was in
session, however, everything was conducted with the utmost formality,
for Americans of all classes are particularly _au fait_ at the ordinary
routine of public meetings.
After working our claim for a few weeks, my partner left me to go to
another part of the mines, and I joined two Americans in buying a claim
five or six miles up the creek. It was supposed to be very rich, and we
had to pay a long price for it accordingly, although the men who had
taken it up, and from whom we bought it, had not yet even prospected the
ground. But the adjoining claims were being worked, and yielding
largely, and from the position of ours, it was looked on as an equally
good one.
There was a great deal to be done, before it could be worked, in the way
of removing rocks and turning the water; and as three of us were not
sufficient to work the place properly, we hired four men to assist us,
at the usual wages of five dollars a-day. It took about a fortnight to
get the claim into order before we could begin washing, but we then
found that our labor had not been expended in vain, for it paid
uncommonly well.
When I bought this claim, I had to give up my cabin, as the distance was
so great, and I now camped with my partners close to our claim, where we
had erected a brush house. This is a very comfortable kind of abode in
summer, and does not cost an hour’s labor to erect. Four uprights are
stuck in the ground, and connected with cross pieces, on which are laid
heaps of leafy brushwood, making a roof completely impervious to the
rays of the sun. Sometimes three sides are filled in with a basketwork
of brush, which gives the edifice a more compact and comfortable
appearance. Very frequently a brush shed of this sort was erected over a
tent, for the thin material of which tents were usually made offered but
poor shelter from the burning sun.
When I left my cabin, I handed it over to a young man who had arrived
very lately in the country, and had just come up to the mines. On
meeting him a few days afterwards, and asking him how he liked his new
abode, he told me that the first night of his occupation he had not
slept a wink, and had kept candles burning till daylight, being afraid
to go to sleep on account of the rats.
Rats, indeed! poor fellow! I should think there were a few rats, but the
cabin was not worse in that respect than any other in the mines. The
rats were most active colonizers. Hardly was a cabin built in the most
out-of-the-way part of the mountains, before a large family of rats made
themselves at home in it, imparting a humanized and inhabited air to the
place. They are not supposed to be indigenous to the country. They are a
large black species, which I believe those who are learned in rats call
the Hamburg breed. Occasionally a pure white one is seen, but more
frequently in the cities than in the mines; they are probably the hoary
old patriarchs, and not a distinct species.[2]
They are very destructive, and are such notorious thieves, carrying off
letters, newspapers, handkerchiefs, and things of that sort, with which
to make their nests, that I soon acquired a habit, which is common
enough in the mines, of always ramming my stockings tightly into the
toes of my boots, putting my neckerchief into my pocket, and otherwise
securing all such matters before turning in at night. One took these
precautions just as naturally, and as much as a matter of course, as
when at sea one fixes things in such manner that they shall not fetch
way with the motion of the ship. As in civilized life a man winds up
his watch and puts it under his pillow before going to bed; so in the
mines, when turning in, one just as instinctively sets to work to
circumvent the rats in the manner described, and, taking off his
revolver, lays it under his pillow, or at least under the coat or boots,
or whatever he rests his head on.
I believe there are individuals who faint or go into hysterics if a cat
happens to be in the same room with them. Any one having a like
antipathy to rats had better keep as far away from California as
possible, especially from the mines. The inhabitants generally, however,
have no such prejudices; it is a free country--as free to rats as to
Chinamen; they increase and multiply and settle on the land very much as
they please, eating up your flour, and running over you when you are
asleep, without ceremony.
No one thinks it worth while to kill individual rats--the abstract fact
of their existence remains the same; you might as well wage war upon
mosquitoes. I often shot rats, but it was for the sport, not for the
mere object of killing them. Rat-shooting is capital sport, and is
carried on in this wise: The most favorable place for it is a log cabin
in which the chinks have not been filled up, so that there is a space of
two or three inches between the logs; and the season is a moonlight
night. Then when you lie down for the night (it would be absurd to call
it “going to bed” in the mines), you have your revolver charged, and
plenty of ammunition at hand. The lights are of course put out, and the
cabin is in darkness; but the rats have a fashion of running along the
tops of the logs, and occasionally standing still, showing clearly
against the moonlight outside; then is your time to draw a bead upon
them and knock them over--if you can. But it takes a good shot to do
much at this sort of work, and a man who kills two or three brace before
going to sleep has had a very splendid night’s shooting.