Caesar's wife. He stood six feet two in his shoes, and was broad and strong in proportion. His head was large; he was thick-Hpped, snub-nosed, and corpulent as Socrates, and though his features were coarse and without much show of intellectuality, he had limbs and sinews like an emigrant's ox, so that what he lacked in mind he made up in muscle. When in the absence of the dealer he would sometimes seat himself at the monte table, his friends flocked round to win his money without fear of imperfect pack or waxed cards. Moreover, George possessed a coat, a relic of former days, and on extraordinary occasions he appeared in a white shirt. There was no fitter man for magistrate in all those parts than George Kelsey.
The principal business before a justice's court held in any of the towns along the Sierra drainage at this time was the settlement of disputes concerning mining claims. Thieving, highway robbery, and deliberate murder had not yet assumed the rank proportion of a year later, and such cases as did come up, the miners preferred to deal with summarily themselves. There was something stimulating, something resolute and audacious in thus dealing sinole-handed with the monster crime which well accorded with their humor. Peace was a commodity little coveted, so that bowieknife encounters and pistolings were left to take their own course, while in free fights the alcalde was more disposed to stand by and maintain fairness than to interpose his staff of office to prevent them.
Among other difficulties encountered by George Kelsey in assuming the somewhat hazardous position of arbiter between the diggers of Washington camp was that general indifference to court rulings and decisions common in the early history of Californian jurisprudence. If at any time during the progress of a case either party to the suit fancied his chances better without than within the pale of law, there was no . hesitancy on his part to drop proceedings, walk out of courtroom, and throw himself upon the miners, or
