Part 9 (1/2)

When they reached the gallows, a rope was placed around the prisoner's neck, and even then, except for a slight paleness, there was no change in his appearance. Amid the breathless silence of the whole a.s.semblage Stuart, standing under the gallows, said, ”I die reconciled. My sentence is just.” His crimes had been many, and he seemed to accept his death as the proper and almost welcome result of his deeds. He was a man of intellect, and, hardened criminal though he was, the instinct of expiation a.s.serted itself in his breast.

In July, 1851, a Spanish woman was tried and condemned by an impromptu vigilance committee for killing an American who, she declared, had insulted her. Being sentenced to be hanged forthwith, she carefully arranged her dress, neatly coiled her hair, and walked quietly and firmly to the gallows. There she made a short speech, saying that she would do the same thing again if she were permitted to live, and were insulted in the same way. Then she bade the crowd farewell, adjusted the noose with her own hands, and so pa.s.sed bravely away.

A few years later at Moquelumne Hill, a young Welshman, scarcely more than a boy, met death in a very similar manner, and for a similar offence. On the scaffold he turned to one of the by-standers, and said, ”Did you ever know anything bad of me before this affair occurred?” The answer was, ”No, Jack.” ”Well,” said the youth, ”tell those Camp Saco fellows that I would do the same thing again and be hung rather than put up with an insult.”

Men like these died for a point of honor, as much as did Alexander Hamilton.

But far higher was the heroism of those who suffered or died for others, and not for themselves. No event, not even the discovery of gold, stirred California more profoundly than did the death of James King. In 1856, King, the editor of the ”Bulletin,” was waging single-handed a vigorous warfare against the political corruption then rife in California, and especially against the supineness of the city officials in respect to gambling and prost.i.tution. He had given out that he would not accept a challenge to a duel, but he was well aware of the risk that he ran. San Francisco, even at that time, indulged in an easy toleration of vice, and only some striking, some terrible event could have aroused the conscience of the public.

Among the city officials whose hatred Mr. King had incurred was James Casey, a typical New York politician, and a former convict, yet not wholly a bad man. The two men, King and Casey, really represented two stages of morality, two kinds of government. Their personal conflict was in a condensed form the clas.h.i.+ng of the higher and the lower ideals. Casey, meeting King on the street, called upon him to ”draw and defend himself”; but King, being without a weapon, calmly folded his arms and faced his enemy. Casey fired, and King fell to the ground, mortally wounded.

”It was expedient that one man should die for the people”; and the death of King did far more than his life could have done to purify the political and social atmosphere of California. On the day following the murder, a Vigilance Committee was organized, and an Executive Committee, consisting chiefly of those who had managed the first Vigilance Committee in 1851, was chosen as the practical ruler of the city. It was supported by a band of three thousand men, distributed in companies, armed, officered and well drilled. For two months and a half the Executive Committee remained in office, exercising its power with marked judgment and moderation. Four men were hung, many more were banished, and the city was purged. Having accomplished its work the Committee disbanded, but its members and sympathizers secured control of the munic.i.p.al government through the ordinary legal channels, and for twenty years administered the affairs of the city with honesty and economy.

The task in 1851 had been mainly to rid the city of Australian convicts; in 1856 it was to correct the political abuses introduced by professional politicians from the East, especially from New York; and in each case the task was successfully accomplished, without unnecessary bloodshed, and even with mercy.

Nor was Casey's end without pathos, and even dignity. On the scaffold he was thinking not of himself, but of the old mother whom he had left in New York. ”Gentlemen,” he said, ”I stand before you as a man about to come into the presence of G.o.d, and I declare before Him that I am no murderer!

I have an aged mother whom I wish not to hear that I am guilty of murder.

I am not. My early education taught me to repay an injury, and I have done nothing more. The 'Alta California,' 'Chronicle,' 'Globe,' and other papers in the city connect my name with murder and a.s.sa.s.sination. I am no murderer. Let no newspaper in its weekly or monthly editions dare publish to the world that I am one. Let it not get to the ears of my mother that I am. O G.o.d, I appeal for mercy for my past sins, which are many. O Lord Jesus, unto thee I resign my spirit. O mother, mother, mother!”

The sinking of the steamer, ”Central America,” off the coast of Georgia, in 1857, is an event now almost forgotten, and yet it deserves to be remembered forever. The steamer was on her way from Aspinwall to New York, with pa.s.sengers and gold from San Francisco, when she sprang a leak and began to sink. The women and children, fifty-three in all, were taken off to a small brig which happened to come in sight, leaving on board, without boats or rafts, five hundred men, all of whom went down, and of whom all but eighty were drowned. Though many were armed, and nearly all were rough in appearance, they were content that the women and children should be saved first; and if here and there a grumble was heard, it received little encouragement. Never did so many men face death near at hand more quietly or decorously.[45]

And yet the critic tells us about the ”perverse romanticism” of Mr. Bret Harte's California tales!

One incident more, and this brief record of California heroism, which might be extended indefinitely, shall close. Charles Fairfax, the tenth Baron of that name,[46] whose family have lived for many years in Virginia, was attacked without warning by a cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin, named Lee.

This man stabbed Fairfax twice, and he was raising his arm for a third thrust when his victim covered him with a pistol. Lee, seeing the pistol, dropped his knife, stepped back, and threw up his hands, exclaiming, ”I am unarmed!”

”Shoot the d.a.m.ned scoundrel!” cried a friend of Fairfax who stood by.

Fairfax, holding the pistol, with the blood streaming from his wounds, said: ”You are an a.s.sa.s.sin! You have murdered me! Your life is in my hands!” And then, after a moment, gazing on him, he added, ”But for the sake of your poor sick wife and of your children, I will spare you.” He then unc.o.c.ked the pistol, and fell fainting in the arms of his friend.

All California rang with the n.o.bility of the deed.

CHAPTER VII

PIONEER LAW AND LAWLESSNESS

California certainly contained what Borthwick describes as ”the elite of the most desperate and consummate scoundrels from every part of the world”; but they were in a very small minority, and the rather common idea that the miners were a ma.s.s of brutal and ignorant men is a wild misconception. An English writer once remarked, somewhat hysterically, ”Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost unexampled laxity, a laxity pa.s.sing the laxity of savages, the laxity of civilized men grown savage.”

Far more accurate is the observation of that eminent critic, Mr.

Watts-Dunton: ”Bret Harte's characters are amenable to no laws except the improvised laws of the camp, and the final arbiter is either the six-shooter or the rope of Judge Lynch. And yet underlying this apparent lawlessness there is that deep law-abiding-ness which the late Grant Allen despised as being the Anglo-Saxon characteristic.”

The almost spontaneous manner in which mining laws came into existence, and the ready obedience which the miners yielded to them, show how correct is the view taken by Mr. Watts-Dunton. What const.i.tuted owners.h.i.+p of a claim; how it must be proved; how many square feet a claim might include; how long and by what means t.i.tle to a claim could be preserved without working it; when a ”find” should become the property of the individual discoverer, and when it should accrue to the partners.h.i.+p of which he was a member,--all these matters and many more were regulated by a code quickly formed, and universally respected. Thus a lump of gold weighing half an ounce or more, if observed before it was thrown into the cradle, belonged to the finder, and not to the partners.h.i.+p.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SACRAMENTO CITY IN 1852]

In the main, mining rules were the same throughout the State, but they varied somewhat according to the peculiar circ.u.mstances of each ”diggings”; and the custom was for the miners to hold a meeting, when they became sufficiently numerous at any point, and make such laws as they deemed expedient. If any controversy arose under them it was settled by the Alcalde.

In respect to this office, again, the miners showed the same instinct for law and order, and the same practical readiness to make use of such means as were at hand.[47] The Alcalde (Al Cadi) was originally a Spanish official, corresponding in many respects with our Justice of the Peace.