THE BORDER FARMER. 109 



" It is difficult," observes a powerful writer in the 

 colony " for people living in security under the 

 immediate protection of magistrates and a vigorous 

 police, to maintain uniformly a correct, just, or im- 

 partial opinion respecting the feelings and conduct 

 of those who inhabit the extensive and thinly-peopled 

 frontiers of hostile communities. Armed by neces- 

 sity — habitually jealous, like one constantly in the 

 presence of his enemy, the border farmer or herds- 

 man contracts insensibly the spirit and vigilance of a 

 soldier, with a certain contempt for human life, when 

 put in competition with property, or the strict ob- 

 servance of the law. Men naturally of the most 

 humane dispositions hold it no sin to kill an enemy 

 in war, and repeated injuries and a sense of danger, 

 whether real or imaginary, dispose a man, not over 

 acute at making distinctions, to impose that terrible 

 name on an adversary who has incurred his just 

 resentment. It is also notorious that, in his insu- 

 lated station, the borderer has often to act promptly 

 in his own defence, without the power of obtaining 

 assistance or advice, and is consequently obliged to 

 represent judge, jury, and sheriff in his own person, 

 and in his own cause. If he is sometimes induced 

 to assume the rights of a legislator also, we need not 

 be surprised at occasional irregularities in his admi- 

 nistration. 



" But while it is freely admitted that a frontier lo- 

 cation in this colony imposes many difficulties on a 



