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.
