Chap. I. AXD AMEEICAX OPINION OX IT. 435 
shot : I have seen him shoot a hare with a pistol while 
riding, in California. When the Americans saw how 
coolly he bore the injury, with the blood streaming 
down his face, they turned from him contemptuously, 
and sided with the Mexican, shouting, "The coward! 
stone him ! kill him ! " 
It would be wrong, however, to imagine that a love 
of shedding blood actuated this judgment. Not so. 
But in the United States men who get into a rage, and 
quarrel and beat one another, are despised, unless it 
be a regular boxing-match, as in England, which is 
begun and carried out with coolness, and where the spec- 
tators form a silent circle round the combatants, without 
taking any part in the contest. In the United States 
to kill a man at a blow is thought less of than a noisy 
and brawling fight. Public morals are based on this 
sentiment, that a punctilious etiquette should always be 
observed, such as Sovereigns show to one another, though 
certainly of quite a different kind to what passes for 
courtesy in France or Germany ; and an intentional 
disregard of these manners is considered a declaration of 
war. Public opinion will generally justify a death-blow, 
if the other party was the first who threatened to strike ; 
but a blow which one man gives another is here gene- 
rally revenged with the death of the aggressor : of course 
this remark does not include the relations of master and 
slave. Our waggon-master, who used his whip pretty 
freely to enforce respect from the Mexican drivers and 
muleteers, would assuredly have long been killed had 
he only raised his arm threateningly against a North- 
American. This practice has one advantage, that it 
obviates the brawls in America, which I have so often 
witnessed in Europe. Screaming, scolding, quarrelling, 
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