SOCIETY, 33 



those of Illinois in the security of life and the maintenance of 

 public order. 



Yet in the most disorderly times, the great majority of the 

 people were peaceful, quiet, and firmly hostile to all forms of 

 crime. The pioneers, as a class, would have been a credit 

 morally to any country ; and the ideas to the contrary have 

 been circulated mainly by writers who were not here previous 

 to 1853. 



California has been a favorite subject of exaggeration. A 

 romancer who wants to make a sensation, tells a big story 

 about our State, with no purpose that it shall be taken as true ; 

 but somebody else imagines it to be the fact, draws it up in a 

 new form, and it then passes as established truth. It must be 

 in this manner that Herbert Spencer, one of the most learned 

 and able men of the day, has lately been misled. The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly for June, 1873, contains a paper from his 

 pen, and in its course he says : 



" I do not refer only to such extreme illustrations of it as 

 were at one time furnished in California, where, along with 

 that complete political freedom which some suppose to be the 

 sole requisite for social welfare, most men lived in perpetual 

 fear for their lives, while others prided themselves on the 

 notches which marked, on the hilts of their pistols, the num- 

 ber of men they had killed.'* 



Unfortunately for Mr. Spencer, his illustrations are false. I 

 have lived twenty-five years in California, part of the time in 

 the mines, have all the time been familiar with the general 

 condition of society throughout the State, and can safely say 

 that never was one man in a hundred " in perpetual fear of 

 his life," nor in any fear once a year. Men who have attended 

 to their own business, kept sober, avoided gambling houses 

 and disputed land titles, and acted honestly, have always been 

 comparatively safe. I do not remember that any California!! 

 murderer ever prided himself on the notches on his pistol 

 marking the number of his victims, nor could boasts of mur?. 

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