The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were
occupied by murdered men. So everybody said, so everybody
believed, and so they will always say and believe. The reason why
there was so much slaughtering done, was, that in a new mining
district the rough element predominates, and a person is not
respected until he has “killed his man.” That was the very
expression used.
If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he
was capable, honest, industrious, but—had he killed his man? If
he had not, he gravitated to his natural and proper position,
that of a man of small consequence; if he had, the cordiality of
his reception was graduated according to the number of his dead.
It was tedious work struggling up to a position of influence with
bloodless hands; but when a man came with the blood of half a
dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized at once and his
acquaintance sought.
In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the
chief desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon keeper,
occupied the same level in society, and it was the highest. The
cheapest and easiest way to become an influential man and be
looked up to by the community at large, was to stand behind a
bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell whisky. I am not sure
but that the saloon-keeper held a shade higher rank than any
other member of society. His opinion had weight. It was his
privilege to say how the elections should go. No great movement
could succeed without the countenance and direction of the
saloon-keepers. It was a high favor when the chief saloon-keeper
consented to serve in the legislature or the board of
aldermen.
Youthful ambition hardly aspired so much to the honors of the
law, or the army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in
a saloon.
To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious.
Hence the reader will not be surprised to learn that more than
one man was killed in Nevada under hardly the pretext of
provocation, so impatient was the slayer to achieve reputation
and throw off the galling sense of being held in indifferent
repute by his associates. I knew two youths who tried to “kill
their men” for no other reason—and got killed themselves for
their pains. “There goes the man that killed Bill Adams” was
higher praise and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of
people than any other speech that admiring lips could utter.
The men who murdered Virginia’s original twenty-six
cemetery-occupants were never punished. Why? Because Alfred the
Great, when he invented trial by jury and knew that he had
admirably framed it to secure justice in his age of the world,
was not aware that in the nineteenth century the condition of
things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose from the
grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would
prove the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating
justice that human wisdom could contrive. For how could he
imagine that we simpletons would go on using his jury plan after
circumstances had stripped it of its usefulness, any more than he
could imagine that we would go on using his candle-clock after we
had invented chronometers? In his day news could not travel fast,
and hence he could easily find a jury of honest, intelligent men
who had not heard of the case they were called to try—but in
our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to swear
in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the system
rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains.
I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in Virginia, which
we call a jury trial. A noted desperado killed Mr. B., a good
citizen, in the most wanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the
papers were full of it, and all men capable of reading, read
about it. And of course all men not deaf and dumb and idiotic,
talked about it. A jury-list was made out, and Mr. B. L., a
prominent banker and a valued citizen, was questioned precisely
as he would have been questioned in any court in America:
“Have you heard of this homicide?”
“Yes.”
“Have you held conversations upon the subject?”
“Yes.”
“Have you formed or expressed opinions about it?”
“Yes.”
“Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?”
“Yes.”
“We do not want you.”
A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly respected; a
merchant of high character and known probity; a mining
superintendent of intelligence and unblemished reputation; a
quartz mill owner of excellent standing, were all questioned in
the same way, and all set aside. Each said the public talk and
the newspaper reports had not so biased his mind but that sworn
testimony would overthrow his previously formed opinions and
enable him to render a verdict without prejudice and in
accordance with the facts. But of course such men could not be
trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could mete out unsullied
justice.
When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of
twelve men was impaneled—a jury who swore they had neither
heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a
murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the
sage-brush and the stones in the streets were cognizant of! It
was a jury composed of two desperadoes, two low beer-house
politicians, three bar-keepers, two ranchmen who could not read,
and three dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came out
afterward, that one of these latter thought that incest and arson
were the same thing.
The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty. What else
could one expect?
The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and
a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame
that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was
good a thousand years ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high
social standing, intelligence and probity, swears that testimony
given under solemn oath will outweigh, with him, street talk and
newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, he is worth a hundred
jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance and stupidity, and
justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs. Why could
not the jury law be so altered as to give men of brains and
honesty and equal chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right
to show the present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a
disability on another, in a land whose boast is that all its
citizens are free and equal? I am a candidate for the
legislature. I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so
alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and
close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do
not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated—every
effort I make to save the country “misses fire.”
My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say something about
desperadoism in the “flush times” of Nevada. To attempt a
portrayal of that era and that land, and leave out the blood and
carnage, would be like portraying Mormondom and leaving out
polygamy. The desperado stalked the streets with a swagger graded
according to the number of his homicides, and a nod of
recognition from him was sufficient to make a humble admirer
happy for the rest of the day. The deference that was paid to a
desperado of wide reputation, and who “kept his private
graveyard,” as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully
accorded. When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively
long-tailed frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty
little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made
room for his majesty; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters
deserted bankers and merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious
service; when he shouldered his way to a bar, the shouldered
parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him,
and—apologized.
They got a look in return that froze their marrow, and by that
time a curled and breast-pinned bar keeper was beaming over the
counter, proud of the established acquaintanceship that permitted
such a familiar form of speech as:
“How’re ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you. What’ll you
take—the old thing?”
The “old thing” meant his customary drink, of course.
The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those
belonging to these long-tailed heroes of the revolver. Orators,
Governors, capitalists and leaders of the legislature enjoyed a
degree of fame, but it seemed local and meagre when contrasted
with the fame of such men as Sam Brown, Jack Williams, Billy
Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike, Pock Marked Jake, El
Dorado Johnny, Jack McNabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris, Six-fingered
Pete, etc., etc. There was a long list of them. They were brave,
reckless men, and traveled with their lives in their hands. To
give them their due, they did their killing principally among
themselves, and seldom molested peaceable citizens, for they
considered it small credit to add to their trophies so cheap a
bauble as the death of a man who was “not on the shoot,” as they
phrased it. They killed each other on slight provocation, and
hoped and expected to be killed themselves—for they held it
almost shame to die otherwise than “with their boots on,” as they
expressed it.
I remember an instance of a desperado’s contempt for such
small game as a private citizen’s life. I was taking a late
supper in a restaurant one night, with two reporters and a little
printer named—Brown, for instance—any name will do. Presently a
stranger with a long-tailed coat on came in, and not noticing
Brown’s hat, which was lying in a chair, sat down on it. Little
Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment. The stranger
smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with
profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown
not to destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the
man to fight—abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage,
and urged and even implored him to fight; and in the meantime the
smiling stranger placed himself under our protection in mock
distress. But presently he assumed a serious tone, and said:
“Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose.
But don’t rush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I
am more than a match for all of you when I get started. I will
give you proofs, and then if my friend here still insists, I will
try to accommodate him.”
The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and
unusually cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on
the dishes and hold them in their places a moment—one of them
was a large oval dish with a portly roast on it. Then he sat
down, tilted up one end of the table, set two of the legs on his
knees, took the end of the table between his teeth, took his
hands away, and pulled down with his teeth till the table came up
to a level position, dishes and all! He said he could lift a keg
of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glass tumbler and
bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom and showed
us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his
arms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his
body to make a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed
with the remark that he was Mr.——of Cariboo—a celebrated
name whereat we shook in our shoes. I would publish the name, but
for the suspicion that he might come and carve me. He finally
inquired if Brown still thirsted for blood. Brown turned the
thing over in his mind a moment, and then—asked him to
supper.
With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in
the next chapter, some samples of life in our small mountain
village in the old days of desperadoism. I was there at the time.
The reader will observe peculiarities in our official society;
and he will observe also, an instance of how, in new countries,
murders breed murders.
