MOBBED m AKIZONA 



I HAVE never known a city more orderly seem- 

 ing, more evidently peaceful and law-abiding 

 than Tucson. Nowhere have I felt safer in wan- 

 dering about by myself in all sorts of places, 

 whether within tiie city proper or in the sur- 

 rounding country. Here is a town, I have said 

 to myself, where the citizen has small need of 

 the policeman. And yet I know a man, most 

 discreet and inoffensive (not to be shame-faced 

 about it, let me admit that I speak of the bird- 

 gazer himself), who a few days ago, for no as- 

 signable reason, was violently set upon, or, to 

 speak plainly, mobbed, just outside the city 

 limits. 



Tucson, it should be premised, is a thriving, 

 rapidly growing, modem city — though it has 

 an antiquity to boast of, as well — in the midst 

 of a desert. Its own site was originally part of 

 the desert. The nearest large city is Los An- 

 geles, California, five hundred miles distant ; the 

 nearest village, from what I hear, must be fifty 

 or sixty miles away. Many roads run out of the 

 town, but only to ranches scattered here and 



