ing, for you have insulted me. Then under the subduing influence of a loaded revolver which will be placed upon the table, I shall proceed to try and determine this suit, after which we will call honors easy. Gentlemen, this is the first time since you elected me alcalde that my honor has been called in question. To my family in Missouri I am accountable for my conduct as a man, and to the miners who elected me for my conduct as a magistrate. I am a big man with a big heart; that is why they elected me alcalde, because I am a man big enough to execute the sentence proceeding from a big heart. I am no trickster; I know no law but common law, and that of the commonest kind; but as long as I am alcalde, I propose to deal out that quality of justice that suits me, and if it don't suit you, then select another man,"
At this juncture in answer to the judge's nod spirits appeared upon the table; mollifying spirits, whose presence seemed to soften the asperities of the litigants, but now bristling in bowie-knives and breathing bullets. *'Go on judge," they both exclaimed, as they drew near and poured each for himself a liberal potation. The case was continued without the punishment promised by the judge, whose words had answered in the place of blows ; and it is needless to say that the decision was in favor of the plaintiff who, as well as his surety, was "well known to be in the round tent interest."
Far below anything in quality that obtained along the mining belt in forty -nine or fifty is that disgraceful union of gin and justice occasionally found in later times. It was a very different matter, the early trial held in a saloon with the proprietor acting as judge, and the thing as sometimes seen to-day. Then saloonkeeping was a respectable occupation; now it is not. Then the best citizens frequented those places; now they do not. Respectability springs from conformity to the moral ideal of society, whether that ideal be right or wrong; and so does intrinsic worth, for virtue loves
