e sportive
oath, light airy and graceful as the limbs of the youth- ful dandy ; the earnest oath ; the angry oath ; the frank and hearty oath, indicative of honesty and good humor; the oath of success, in which the chcncest gems of irreverence are thrown off like soap-bubbles ; oaths of time, place, and occupation; the oath of com- mon conversation, the murderous cut-throat oath, the business oath, the oath of greeting, swearing when not knowing what else to say; the midnight guttural drunken oath, the clear ringing gladsome oath of morning, the orthodox oath, oaths that are not oaths, reluctantly coming from bashful inexperienced lips ; the scientific doubly-refined oath of the gambler ; oaths of nations, the i>:ood old round Enplish oath, racy and mouth-filling as even Hotspur should wish, the rolling sacre of the Frenchman, the infernal melody of the Spaniard, the whining Yankee cussings, the spluttering Dutchman's swearings, and the imitative intonations of the Celestial. The muleteer relieved his burdened bosom in outpourings that seldom failed to convict the most impenitent animal. Approaching the unfortunate nmle that had fallen under a heavy load, or had mired in the mud, its driver would pour forth such a stream of profanity int( ) its ear as would make the dumb beast tremble in every fibre, and glance around with terrified eye as if expecting the earth to open, or the invoked deity to smite to dust the author of such fiendish imprecations. Under such exhortations, native stubbornness gave way, and the virtue of pn^fanity was clearly vindicated in the eyes of the driver.
Indeed, notwithstanding all that has been said re- garding vice and crime, I am not so sure that Califor- nia in her wickedest days was worse than the pseudo righteous states of the east and Europe. In the shameful pleasantries of the times there were counter- balancing virtues, which went far toward preserving the moral equilibrium. If iniquity here was more unblushing, there was less of cant and hypocrisy, less
