politicians, and those whose bread depended upon pubhc opinion, that persons were found so lost to moral courage and manliness as to decline to fight where they had no desire to slay.
Glacus, the Spartan, consulted the oracle at Delphi concerning the restoration of certain money in his possession to the rightful owner. "May I not" he asked, "purge myself by oath after the Greek fashion and so keep the money?'" Thus from his courage, as Glacus from his honesty, the duellist in vain beseeches his gods to deliver him.
Socrates, if he wished to punish an enemy, would let him escape punishment. "If he has stolen a sum of money" he says, "let him keep it, and spend it on him and his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he has done things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness." So would not the miners of California,
Of all men in the community during that epoch of our history when insult could be washed out but by blood alone, those who mouthed it most loudly, and with sanctimonious visage sighed over the desecration of our holy law, were the first to break it when what they called their honor was at stake.
The duelling grounds in early times were at the Mission. There was no need of secrecy in those days, for sheriffs and judges never attended except as spectators. Some of the most noted duellists of the day sat upon the supreme bench and talked soberly about the unsound principles of the anarchic and revolutionary vigilance movement, and how by it all rights of persons and security of property founded on constitutional compact and legal form would be destroyed.
How vain and absurd! Honest, order-loving men may not strike one blow at a public scourge, one blow for the commonwealth, for themselves, their friends, yet their judges and those who denounce them shall forsooth be praised for jumping from the bench and breaking the law for the simple gratification of a hot
