fit of liveliness, an intoxicated gentleman will discharge his revolver in a ballroom, and when a "shyooting" begins in the thin-walled frame houses, those not concerned avoid bullets and splinters by jumping into their beds. During my three days' stay at Carson City I heard of three murders. A man "heavy on the shoulder," who can "hit out straight from the hip," is a valuable acquisition. The gambler or professional player, who in the Eastern States is exceptionably peaceful, because he fears the publicity of a quarrel, here must distinguish himself as a fighting-man. A curious story was told to illustrate how the ends of justice might, at a pinch, in the case of a popular character, be defeated. A man was convicted of killing his adversary after saying to the bystanders, "Stoop down while I shoot the son of a dog (female)." Counsel for the people showed malice prepense; counsel for defense pleaded that his client was rectus in curia, and manifestly couldn't mean a man, but a dog. The judge ratified the verdict of acquittal.
Such was the state of things, realizing the old days of the Californian gold-diggings, when I visited in 1860 Carson City. Its misrule, or rather want of rule, has probably long since passed away, leaving no more traces than a dream. California has been transformed by her Vigilance Committee, so ignorantly and unjustly declaimed against in Europe and in the Eastern States of the Union, from a savage autonomy to one of the most orderly of the American republics, and San Francisco, her capital, from a den of thieves and prostitutes, gamblers and miners, the offscourings of nations, to a social status not inferior to any of the most favored cities.
This day will be the last of my diary. We have now emerged from the deserts of the Basin State, and are debouching upon lands where coaches and the electric telegraph ply.
After a cold night at the hospitable Smith's, and losing the cattle, we managed to hitch to, and crossed, not without difficulty, the deep bed of the Carson River, which runs over sands glittering with mica. A little beyond it we found the station-house, and congratulated ourselves that we had escaped a twelve hours' durance vile in its atmosphere of rum, korn schnapps, stale tobacco, flies, and profane oaths, not to mention the chance of being "wiped out" in a "difference" between a soldier and a gambler, or a miner and a rider.
From the station-house we walked, accompanied by a Mr. O.—who, after being an editor in Texas, had become a mail-rider in Utah Territory—to the fort. It was, upon the principle of its eastern neighbors, a well-disposed cantonment, containing quarters for the officers and barracks for the men. Fort Churchill had been built during the last few months: it lodged about two companies of infantry, and required at least 2000 men. Captain F. F.
