SOME GENERAL REFLECTIONS.
Education--Free Schools--Influence of Money in
Politics--Corruption in Public Life--Crime on the Western
Borders--The Great Rebellion--Anniversaries--Great courtesy to
strangers--Manners and Customs.
"Westward the course of Empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day,
Time's noblest offspring is the last."
The "tar-water Bishop of Cloyne" would have been exceedingly astonished
could he have seen the first line of his prophecy or averment made to
do duty as a motto to Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States; but
surely if the prophecy be not realised, it will be the fault of the
agencies engaged in working it out--never in the history of mankind,
as we know it, have such advantages been enjoyed by any nation as have
been, and are, the appanage of the Americans of European origin in
the New World. They have leaped into the possession of their heritage
full armed, like Minerva from the brain of Jove. For them have all
the champions of human rights died or conquered, and the protagonists
of human struggles for liberty 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 Serbonian bog
of creeds and 'isms, of factions and faiths, all struggling towards
the gate of the Temple of Mammon. "Philosophers," in all the doubts and
fears which the condition of the Republic inspires at times, cling with
confidence to the palladium which is, they think, to be found in the
system of education based on the free schools of the States. If there
were not a distinction between knowledge and morality, they would be
justified; but the Evil One tempted us to eat of the fruit of the tree
which brought sin into the world, and if Americans are to be trusted
as authorities, the result of the largest and most liberal system of
education ever devised is not as happy in practice as it ought to be
according to theory.
As the central Government extended its sway over the Territories there
was a uniform system, when assigning land for public objects to railway
companies, of retaining for the School Fund a portion of the land
in each Territory, as it was settled and admitted as such, under the
control of the central Government. In the States Constitutions creating
Sovereign States, there are provisions inserted, varying very little in
language and not at all in spirit, which render it compulsory on the
Legislature of each State to maintain public schools free to all the
children of the people residing within its borders. Another principle,
of universal application, provided that all schools under public
control should be free from sectarian or denominational teaching, in
the schools or in the books used for educational purposes. With such
safeguards for the extension of education, it is depressing to find
that, in certain districts at all events, crime and immorality prevail
in the United States as extensively as in the benighted kingdoms of the
Continent of Europe. But the most serious consideration in connection
with the system of common schools in America, is the fact that serious
doubts are intruding themselves respecting the success of it. In a
recent official report it was stated that whereas the children who
ought to go to school numbered about fourteen and a half millions, the
average attendance was not more than five millions. But, assuming that
all the children went to school, there are people who declare that the
education given under the 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 9_l._ 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 against the common
school system are to be gleaned. Some statisticians say that crime and
pauperism are increasing far more rapidly than population. The charge
on the State for punishing criminals and keeping paupers last year was
$20,000,000, or £4,000,000; but it is too much to attribute crime and
pauperism to the defects of the schools. It might with more reason be
argued that the teaching of the people in the schools tends to develop
the looseness and eccentricity of thought, where there is no religious
teaching, which are exemplified in the uprising of extraordinary sects
and strange philosophies; for America is the land of spiritualists,
mesmerism, soothsaying, and mystical congregations. Mr. Hepworth Dixon
may not be a perfectly unimpeachable authority on the subject of the
number of spiritualists in America; but there can be no question they
are to be counted by millions. It is averred that believers in spirits
generally believe in "special affinities which imply a spiritual
relation of the sexes higher and holier than that of marriage." It is
not wonderful then that there should be also a very large number of
divorces, especially in the New England States. Mr. Nutting says that
"in the history of nations there has never but thrice occurred such
a breaking up of the family tie as is now taking place, especially in
Rhode Island and Connecticut, among the people of New England blood."
Mormonism, although of American origin and early growth, has been
mainly successful by the constant importation of ignorant peasants from
Europe.
There is a want of reverence on the part of children towards their
parents which is very striking. Americans who have admitted and
deplored this have sought to account for it by the school system,
wherein the State usurps the place of the parent, and teaches the young
idea to mock at any 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; but it would seem as if very little of that kind
of instruction was given by the busy fathers and anxious mothers of the
Republic, and that when the day's work is done at school, and some time
given to the preparation of the studies for the day to follow, there is
no further teaching.
I do not think the rule "By their fruits shall ye know them" can be
applied to the public schools, in connection with the prevalence of
crime, immorality, unbelief, or eccentric religion. But it is certain
the system has not by any means secured that high level of general
education, or what education is supposed to bring 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 to time may be found, who, seated among
the good and wise, excite admiration akin to that which is aroused by
the spectacle of a fly in amber. It has been observed by travellers
that whatever affection may exist in families, it does not attain that
keen sensibility and lasting power which is found in French domestic
life.
When American newspapers of the greatest influence and circulation
write invectives against the corruption which prevails in places
high and low, when writers of great intelligence and known character
contribute similar articles to periodicals which possess the highest
position in the literary world of America, a stranger may be permitted
perhaps to say a few words respecting the impression produced upon
his mind by what he heard and read on the subject when he was in
the country, without it being alleged that he attempts to assail
the principles of free government, or to make invidious charges or
wholesale accusations against a nation. I know too well the 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 Corporation had been bought up. Now, nothing was
more common in the Far West than to hear it stated openly that Senator
So-and-so had bought his place, and that Mr. So-and-so had purchased
a State Legislative body in order to "get through" some railway or
other scheme. That was accepted in fact as a matter of course, and
not contradicted or questioned by any one. We heard from time to time
of the sums which So-and-so would expend to buy his senatorship, and
of the money actually paid to secure the passage of a line from the
legislature of O---- and the like, whilst stories relating to the
purchase of judges were common in the conversation of the hotels and
cars.
I do not aver that these stories were true. I only know that they
passed current and were not challenged by those who were around us.
"Thoughtful persons," who exist in the United States as well as in
the vicinity of Pall Mall clubs, lament, deplore and hate the evils
of growing corruption with all the fervour of honest and powerless
natures. The mechanism is scarcely concealed. It stands before the
world with less attempt at disguise than the gallows in the gaol. Mr.
Parton, in the 'North American Review' of this July, writing on the
power of public plunder, says: "At present, in the ninety-fifth year
of the Constitution, we are face to face with a state of politics of
extreme simplicity, of which money is the motive, the means and the
end. What was the last Presidential election but a contest of purses?
The longest purse carried the day, and it carried the day because it
was the longest. Some innocent readers perhaps have wondered why the
famous orators who swayed vast multitudes day after day and night after
night, have not been recognised in the distribution of office. They
were paid in cash from ten dollars a night to a thousand dollars a
week." And then he goes on to describe the business in detail, and to
show what this power is. He says: "There is a boss in the city of New
York who will take a contract for putting a gentleman into Congress.
Pay him so much and you may go to sleep, wake up and find yourself
member elect. A boss is a man who can get to the polls on election
days masses of voters who care little or nothing for the issues of the
campaign and know of them still less. They operate upon 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 precarious pittance per annum if
now and then it costs a million dollars to change them. Mr. Secretary
Blaine has thrice declared that the election in October 1880 in the
State of Maine, a model New England State, was carried by money. His
opponents declared that he and his party were as bad, and that they
too flooded the towns with money. What renders the situation more
dangerous is the fact that the men who provide the money for running
these enormously expensive political combinations are either seekers
after, or holders of, office, and the inference is that they seek to
control Government, or, as Mr. Parton puts it, that "the Government
is coming to be rather an appendage to a circle of wealthy operators
than a restraint upon them." That is indeed a serious proposition, and
the result of observation goes to support the idea that it is valid.
The small man is in office, but the big man, his master, is outside.
The mischief is brought prominently forward in connection with the
sale of public lands in the North-West, which have been claimed as the
heritage of the people, and indeed of all the nations of the world. The
government land attracted the hardy labour of all countries, covering
the western west with thriving towns and populous counties. But now
the prairies are skinned by rich men, by "land-grabbers," people who
buy up tracts of twenty thousand or thirty thousand acres wherever
they can lay their hands upon them, evading the law and filling the
western world with roving labourers who work on these prodigious farms
in summer and starve in winter. This is, we are told, the result of
"government by lobby."
Occasionally there is an exceeding great and bitter cry over all this
from the depths of the body politic. Some great paper in a moment of
deep mental agony publishes an article like that, to which I have
called attention, by Mr. Parton; occasionally some preacher, nobly
daring, thinks it necessary to direct attention, from his pulpit, to
the progress of corruption. Dr. Talmage delivered a very remarkable
discourse whilst I was in America on the text from Job. xv. 34: "Fire
shall consume the tabernacles of bribery." Although I do not profess
exactly to understand to what particular sect he belongs, he is one of
the leaders of religious thought, dividing with Beecher and others the
popular favour in the Empire City. The State buildings at Albany ought
to be heavily insured if the reverend gentleman's vaticinations are
right. It was an American discourse. I cannot give the whole oration.
The people of the Brooklyn Tabernacle were presented with a muster-roll
of the people who had distinguished themselves amongst the great ones
of the world. Cobden, Brougham, O'Connell and Rowland Hill were placed
in juxtaposition as leaders on our side of the water. Of course it was
impossible to resist the allusion to Francis Bacon and to Macclesfield;
but it was scarcely correct to say that the Lord Chancellor
Whiteberry--I presume a misprint for Westbury--"perished," nor do I
quite understand what the preacher meant by the awful tragedy of the
_Credit Mobilier_. Washington, Ben Butler, and John McClean were linked
together for the benefit of Americans. They were, Dr. Talmage declared,
great politicians, but "out of politics there has come one monstrous
sin, potent and pestiferous, its two hands rotten with leprosy,
its right hand deep in its breeches pocket. This is bribery." Dr.
Talmage called upon the American people to judge the crime. "Under the
temptation of this sin," he exclaimed, "Benedict Arnold sold the fort
in the Highlands for thirty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-five
dollars; Gorgy betrayed Hungary, Ahitophel forsook David, Judas killed
Christ. I think," 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 corporation, as in the case of a petroleum company, which
was enabled to control the price of that light all over the world in
consequence of a virtual monopoly that was given to it by arrangement
with the railway. In the same way merchandise in grain, provisions,
and cattle are placed in the hands of a few firms. "How much," asks
Dr. Talmage, "did it cost the Elevated Railroad to keep the fare from
dropping to five cents from ten cents? I have been told," said he,
"three hundred thousand dollars," which is 60,000_l._ "Very seldom
does a bill pass through any of our Legislatures if there be no money
in it. Sometimes the bribery is in bank bills, sometimes in railroad
passes, sometimes in political preferment, sometimes by the monopolies
given to the legislators, what are called points, a corner, a flier, a
cover, washing the street, salting down, ten up! If you want to know
what these are, ask the bribed members at Albany and Harrisburg."
Then he goes on, with some truth, to declare that the bribery begins
far away behind all this; that it is really with the money subscribed
for election expenses that the evil begins its course. "From the big
reservoirs of subscribed election expenses the little rills roll down
in ten thousand directions, and by the time the great gubernatorial,
congressional, and presidential elections are over, the land is drunk
with bribery." Perhaps it is quite as well that it is from an American
orator and from an American writer such statements and such indictments
proceed, rather than from a stranger like myself; but it is very clear
that the evil which De Tocqueville indicated long ago has spread rather
than diminished, and there is reason to think that it will do so until
the public conscience of a great people is aroused to a sense of the
enormity of the mischief. But it lies far down towards the base of
the national institutions, and any attempt to extirpate it will fail
until the doctrines of the "Spoils to the Victors" be rejected from the
political catechism, and the interests of party made the means and not
the end of political life.
The letters which appeared in the _Morning Post_, written under
the influence of the surprise and anger I felt at the extent and
impunity of crimes of violence and the state of feeling, or want of
it, respecting them in the West, were badly received in America, and
were severely handled by a few papers, as I was informed; I expected
that the mention of the subject would not prove agreeable, though
I guarded myself most sedulously from a single offensive word--nay,
went out of my way to palliate the offences against life and living,
and to excuse the people who allowed them, whilst I most carefully
drew the line--a broad one--between these border ruffians and 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 Sutherland expressed
his delight at the kind and courteous treatment of the ruffians I
denounced; adding, "somebody lied--it was not the Duke." No. It was not
indeed! A friend sent me one of these, and below an article in which it
was said that I might take my place "beside Basil Hall, Mrs. Trollope,
and Dickens for libelling the people of the United States," and that
my stories were all inventions, there was a pregnant commentary as
follows:--"Sunday, July 17th: Daring Train Robbery; Bandits Boarding
Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Cars; The Conductor and a Passenger
Shot Dead, and the Safe in the Express Car Robbed; the Passengers Saved
by a Brakeman."
I hope it will not be imagined that I have any desire to cast obloquy
on the grand efforts, supremely successful as they have been, to
turn the prairie and the desert to the uses of civilised man and
of the world, and to open up the Western Continent to humanity and
civilisation. I am too sensible 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. _Maculæ solis!_ 'Tis a pity they are there! In a few years,
perhaps, the memory that such things were will have passed away like
the recollection of some evil dream. But public sentiment must make
itself felt, and above all there must be some abatement of the maudlin
sympathy, which is virtually on the side of crime, if it be active in
averting punishment.
Crime in America, especially in the Eastern States, is very much
the same as it is in other countries, but in the far West there is
more recklessness in dealing with human life, which, in spite of the
Howard Society and of humanitarians, I believe to be connected with
the indulgence extended under State laws by American judges and juries
to criminals who appear to be deserving of nothing but the strict
and unmitigated application of the rope. "Property" is safe, for the
citizens hunt down with extraordinary energy marauders whose object is
simply plunder. Ordinary robbers and gangs of burglars are speedily
and summarily suppressed. It is otherwise with those who assail life
and limb. The desperadoes who infest 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 bearded
miners, and their horses hitched up at the door-posts in front; inside
you would be certain to find men of the same class at a bar, behind
which, known for miles around, the affable Charlie, Bill, or Bob was
dispensing drinks and mixing cocktails, slings, and the other drinks,
in which the badness of the spirit is artfully disguised by a stimulant
of a more active character and more pronounced flavour, known as
"bitters," and kept in subjugation by the liberal use of ice. For even
in these burning regions ice is stored up as the one thing needful. The
rudest miner is accustomed to it; iced drinks are consumed by classes
in America far below the social level of those who never taste them in
this country.
As the train was halting at Colorado Springs the stewards engaged
in an animated discussion respecting a certain erection of poles and
rafters just visible in an adjacent field. "I tell you dat's it." "I
say tidn't." They were discussing the probability of the scaffolding
being the gallows whereon "Canty, the Buena Vista murderer," was to be
hanged the day after. On April 29th, last year, Mr. Canty was standing
on the platform in front of Lake-house with "Johnny the Ham," "Curly
Frank," and "Off Wheeler," when Thomas Perkins appeared in an alley
opposite, endeavouring "to induce 'Dutch Bill' to go with him to the
office of Justice Casey, who had deputised him for the purpose." Canty
and his companions at once ran across and demanded his release. Before
Perkins could answer, Canty fired and missed him. The second shot
wounded Perkins in the arm; the latter drew his pistol, but before he
could use it Canty fired; the ball shattered the constable's hand. "For
God's sake," he exclaimed, "is there no policeman to help me?" He fell,
and Canty, walking close to his side, coolly sent a bullet through
his body. He was arrested, tried, and convicted. His counsel applied
to the Supreme Court for a _supersedeas_, but the court, after solemn
argument, refused the application. Then they applied to the Governor
of the State, but Mr. Pitkin, though "a weak-kneed man," would neither
grant a reprieve nor a commutation to imprisonment for life. There
was, he said, no ground "to set aside a verdict of a competent jury
and the district judge reviewed and approved of by the Supreme Court."
In the very last hour a woman came forward, and the Denver paper gave
_verbatim et literatim_ the text of the document in which ... "with dew
regard," she offered Sheriff Spangler $50,000 (10,000_l._) to save the
life of W. H. Canty, her cousin, whose real name was, she said, N. H.
Salisbury. "I entreat you to have him spared till you have an interview
with me." She added that "Jennings and his brother in Leadville would
pay a still larger sum. You may have ample means for life," &c. A
gentleman of the press, who came into our train at South Arkansas,
was present at the execution. Just before the drop fell, Canty, who
had expressed complete confidence in his ultimate liberation till the
day before his execution, spoke for fifteen minutes, protesting his
innocence. Then he exclaimed, "Good-bye, nothing can save me. I have
faith in the Saviour and a hereafter." The trap was sprung, but to the
horror of every one, the rope broke at the beam. The murderer's neck,
however, was dislocated, and "a happy relief was experienced" when
it was found he had died a painless death. As he was the nephew of an
eminent statesman it was expected his friends would take action as to
the disposal of his remains, which were put "in a neat casket at the
sheriff's expense." In the journal there was a woodcut of the murderer.
"Before his likeness could be taken holes were bored in the door and
Canty was lashed to it, and then, when the door was set upright, the
photographer watched a favourable opportunity when the head and eyes
were quiet and secured the impression" from which the engraving was
made. He was not so fortunate as Frank Gilbert, who was sentenced to
be hanged the following day for a brutal murder, but respited, "in
order that the proceedings may be reviewed by the highest judicial
tribunal," by Governor Pitkin at the last moment, "till July 29," the
day on which Rosencrantz is now sentenced to be hanged. The sheriff,
Judge Ward, the clerk of the court, and the prosecuting attorney
joined with others in petitions to the governor on the ground that
the Supreme Court judges had refused a _supersedeas_ in consequence of
the defects and informalities of the record of the proceedings in the
court below. Rosencrantz was respited, and the public, who had been
expecting a double execution on the 18th of June, were disappointed,
although they were allowed to slake their curiosity by the sight of the
condemned men and by testing the ropes in the prison enclosure where
the scaffold was ready. In the paper which gave the text of Governor
Pitkin's reprieve there was a heading "Done Brown. Al. Huggins,
marshal of Recene, turns out a bad man. He shoots and fatally wounds
officer Brown of Kokomo." Phil. Foote, constable of Kokomo, formerly
marshal of Robinson, and Al. Huggins, marshal of Recene, it seems had
spent the night in visiting the saloons of Kokomo, and in the early
morning began to fire their pistols and guns off in the street, and
continued to do so until Andy Sutton, marshal of Kokomo, attempted to
arrest them, but failed, "as he was quickly covered by two rifles."
Mr. Brown, a police officer, asked Huggins to put up his pistol, and,
to encourage him, proceeded to pocket his own revolver, when Huggins
took deliberate aim with a 38-calibre Colt and shot Brown in the left
breast, just above the heart. Huggins and Foote started for Recene.
The marshal of Kokomo followed quickly in pursuit, with a large body
of men. Huggins refused to surrender, whereupon the marshal shot him
in the face. As there was a movement to lynch him, Al. Huggins was
sent under strong guard to Leadville, but Foote escaped. "Brown was
not dead by last accounts, but was not expected to live long." Then
came a long account of another "Denver tragedy. Charles Stickney
murders Mr. T. Campan and Mrs. H. O. Devereux in a boarding-house."
Stickney was nephew of ex-Governor Clifford, of Rhode Island, served as
lieutenant, 20th Regiment, in the war of 1861-4, graduated at Harvard,
became principal of a school, married a lady whom he sent to London
to study music, and tried mining whilst his wife was giving music
lessons in Denver. There she met Mr. Campan, one of the best families
in Detroit; Stickney shot him and killed a woman who was in the room
at the same time. "Public opinion is in favour of Stickney, and he will
probably be reprimanded." The evening of the day we reached Leadville,
"Alderman Johnnie M'Combe, a leading candidate for lieutenant-governor
and mayor, and last spring before the people for city treasurer,"
shot and wounded, probably fatally, a well-known actor named James
M'Donald, because the latter had taken some children in M'Combe's
buggy for a drive. It is not easy to determine how far Johnnie's chance
of office may be affected by this ebullition, but the newspapers did
not write of it with harshness; one gave it a comic character by the
heading, "Ex-Alderman M'Combe attempts to perforate Jemmy M'Donald's
cranium." In my morning paper of the same date I find that "James Hogan
was foully murdered by James M'Cue in the open streets of Erie this
afternoon in a quarrel about a handkerchief;" that Dr. Flemings, a
prominent citizen of Portland, Ashley County, Arkansas, had appeased
a quarrel between a pedlar named Gillmore and a coloured man very
effectually, for, "incensed by a remark made by the pedlar, the doctor
drew a pistol and shot him dead;" that "a prominent business man of
M'Leansboro' had made a sensation on the streets to-day by hunting
up, pistol in hand, one of the gay Lotharios of Hamilton County;"
that "Daniel Keller, deputy county clerk, was stabbed and killed in
the street of Virginia City by Dennis Hennessy, a kerbstone broker;"
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 so sudden and dangerous that the
slightest delay in moving to a new and milder climate would have been
fatal, the subjects dying of dislocation of the spinal vertebræ at the
end of a few minutes--and a rope. A great many left Arkansas, Indiana,
and other States in such a hurry that they were obliged to borrow the
horses on which they rode to Texas. They mostly recovered on reaching
Austin, and many invalids began to feel better and consider themselves
out of danger as soon as they crossed the Brancos River. Some who would
not have lived twenty-four hours longer had they not left their homes
reached a green old age in Western Texas, and were never again in risk
of the bronchial affection already referred to by carefully avoiding
the causes which led to their trouble. Some at Austin recovered so
far as to be able to run for office, within a year, though defeated
by a respectable majority, owing to the atmosphere and the popularity
of the other candidate." The most extraordinary fact connected with
the indulgence which is extended to Western excesses is the severity
with which Northern and Eastern writers and publicists deal with
the recklessness of Southerners with regard to life, as if it were a
political question in some way connected with slavery. In an article on
"Colonisation," in the July number of 'The International Review,' there
is an attempt to prove that the prevalence of homicide in the South as
compared with the North has impeded the flow of immigrants, although
slavery has disappeared, and the writer, quoting Mr. Redfield's book
on 'Homicide North and South,' says the terrible "scourge of open
murder, wholly irrespective of political causes more deadly than
disease or yellow fever, because each death is the result of a heinous
crime, seems to be calmly accepted by public opinion as a part of
the unchangeable conditions of social life in the South. In Kentucky
more men are killed in six days than in eight years in Vermont. In a
village of Connecticut a death from homicide has never occurred from
its foundation, while in one graveyard in Owen County, Kentucky, the
majority are murdered men, and in another county forty-two persons
were killed and forty-three wounded in two years." But in the very same
number of the 'International' there is an account of the doings of the
"Vigilance Committee" of San Francisco (where there were no slaves and
where there is immense wealth), which might cause the author of the
paper on "Colonisation" to reflect a little on his theories. Surely in
Arizona, California, &c., where the foreign population is 50 per cent.
of the natives, immigration has not been checked by the prevalence of
homicide? It must not be supposed that there is no "law" in the towns
where these crimes have been committed; in all the cases referred to
the coroner did his office and verdicts were returned, and it will have
been seen that "wretches hang" in due course. We had intended to visit
the State prison at Cañon City on our way to Pueblo from Leadville,
where we were promised an opportunity of seeing "thirty murderers all
in a row," but the delay of the train on the road deprived us of the
means of verifying the statement, and I give it as it was made. It
would seem as if the criminal supply were super-abundant, or that death
on the gallows had no deterrent influence. The chances of escape are,
if not numerous, at least considerable. At Deming, Denver, Leadville,
Tucson, Tombstone, and other cities, the vast mass of the inhabitants
are law-abiding, peaceable, honest, and honourable men, who feel as
much horror at the violence and bloodshed around them as the most
refined lady in any saloon of Boston, Paris, or London, but they appear
to endure these things in the hope that the law will be enforced at
last; now and then they break into vigilance committees and execute
their own decrees, though the judges do not fail to lay it down that
they have been accessories to murder. The great civiliser and police
agent is the railroad. It is affirmed that as the iron way is pushed on
the outlaws and the _personnel_ of outlawry congregate at the terminal
town, but I suspect that there is a fringe of the material left on the
border as it runs. As our party were at dinner in the palace-car one
evening the train pulled up at a station. There was a group of rough
men on the platform, who stared in with all their eyes at the white
tablecloth, set with bright glass and silver, and at the cheerful faces
under the lamps. "How merry they are. I wonder if they know that this
is Dodge City?" exclaimed one of the crowd. I was told by an official
that when they were making a railway in these parts the surveyors, &c.,
were much troubled by gangs of gamblers and robbers, who impeded the
work and debauched the men, so after due warning they made a razzia
on the gamblers, shot a lot of them, and the rest "vamosed." There was
not very long ago an actual war in the Grand Cañon Valley between the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway and the Denver and Rio Grande
Railway, in which there was an array of armed forces and fighting on
both sides, and we saw with our own eyes the remains of the breastworks
cast up in the Grand Cañon by the belligerents. The law came in at
last. "One side got at the judge first and gave him $50,000. The
other was quite ready to go beyond that, but the first was too quick,
and the suit went against the company." I was talking to a lawyer
about the length of time which is allowed by the judges to criminals
sentenced to death as a detail of the execution of the law not in
accordance with the general practice of civilised nations, when one
of the company remarked, "They must do it, sir, to please the people.
If we had Judas Iscariot in gaol to-morrow there would be thousands
of petitions to commute his sentence, and thousands of dollars ready
for an appeal to the Supreme Court. Our people don't like prompt
sentence." Nevertheless, sentence and execution are pretty swift when
the desperadoes take the law into their own hands, as we have seen.
The revolver and the "saloon" are the agents and the scene in most of
these murders, and whisky is too often the motive power. In Kansas it
is a criminal offence to sell any intoxicating spirit, or to use it
except on medical certificate. It is said that the law cannot last, but
it surely was a very strong conviction of the evils which were endured
by the community that brought a State Legislature, elected by the
people, to enact that beer, wine, and spirits should be absolutely and
entirely banished from its borders. Lately there was a prosecution by
the State attorney of a man for selling spirits. The case was clearly
proved. The judge charged the jury in the strongest manner against the
defendant. The jury without retiring at once found a verdict of "not
guilty." "Boys," exclaimed the judge, putting his hand on the foreman's
shoulder, "Boys, I'm quite with you." The Kansas case will be, I think,
watched with great interest by the rival parties in England, and it is
certainly worth investigation and attention, for, if all I hear be true
here, a Parliament elected by the people either in advance or in the
rear of their constituents have passed a law which judges condemn, and
juries evade, and public opinion derides.
From a British, which may be an unintelligent, point of view, there
is a want of logical method in the treatment of the Great Rebellion
question by Americans. There is a general disposition to speak of the
war between the Federal Government and the people of the Confederate
States as an historical fact which has ceased to present burning
controversies and terrible issues to the Republic. But, at the same
time, these controversies 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 banners and waving their sheathed swords
in and out of the newspapers, and it is almost more than Southern
flesh and blood can bear at times to be reminded of the defeats they
sustained, even if they be content to admit that the doctrine of the
sovereignty of States was a delusion, and that the indivisibility of
the Republic was a fundamental principle of the Constitution before it
was conclusively established by force of arms.
North and South, our good cousins are fond of anniversaries and
speechmakings. I wonder where they get their taste for them from?
Some few veterans dine together on anniversaries of old French war
days, and there is a Balaclava Dinner in the Old Country; but, though
we have 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
wonder if it was worth remembering? But it is better to remember such
things perhaps than Sherman's Raid or Wilderness--or Chickahominy.
There are bitternesses enough remaining--the rivalries and jealousies
of generals are still active and these memories might be left to die
out.
The great war which so deeply moved the population of the United States
has left many traces in Soldiers' Homes, and men deprived of legs or
arms, or bearing marks of indelible wounds, are to be met with wherever
there is any considerable gathering of people all over the Union. The
clerk at the bar of the hotel, to whom we were talking a moment ago,
was a captain in a regiment of militia, and served with distinction,
having risen to the 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 several other actions. And our good
friend the Major, who enabled us to pass many an hour listening to his
admirable rendering of negro minstrelsy, bore in his body a proof of
the dangers he had passed, in the shape of a Confederate bullet, or
it might have been (for I am not quite sure now) a projectile of the
Federal persuasion. And so on. Scarcely a day passed that we did not
meet someone who had been fighting on one side or the other.
One great change has come over Americans since I was last here, and,
whether it was the ridicule to which they were exposed or to a sense
of their greatness as a nation that it be due, it is to be commended.
Except by a professional interviewer, not one of the party was asked,
"What do you think, sir, of our country?"!
The welcome which an Englishman who is entitled to admission into
good society receives all over the States, in the best houses, and
from the best men, is as gracious and warm as ever. It seems as if a
reaction against the suspicion, jealousy, and harshness which marred
the political 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! Admit that I can be as magnanimous as I am rich and
cultivated! I am of your house, but I have transplanted all the good
qualities of your race to American soil, and grafted them on the tree
of liberty which towers aloft in all the splendour of Transatlantic
luxuriance above us."