“No body of rough, uncouth, pistolled ruffians, such as Bret Harte depicts the miners, would have formed such a group of benevolent, far-reaching and comprehensive laws.  The early miner represented the best type of American character.  He was brave, undeterred by obstacles, enduring with patient fortitude the perils and privations of the long journey of half a year by land, or a tempestuous voyage by sea; undaunted alike by the terrors of Cape Horn or the insidious diseases of the Isthmus of Panama.  He met the, to him, hitherto unknown problem of the extraction of gold and solved it with the wisdom and vigor which distinguish the American.  Observe that the provision against throwing dirt on another man’s claim anticipated by many years the famous hydraulic decision of Judge Sawyer.  It is another way of stating the maxim of law and equity:  ’so use your own property, as not to injure that of another.’”

Mr. Maslin agrees with Ben Taylor that the hangings and shootings of the period following the discovery of gold have been grossly exaggerated.  On this point he said:  “I will venture to assert that in certain of the Mississippi Valley States, in their early settlement, more men were killed in one year than in ten of the early mining years in California.”  Of lynching, he said:  “There were few lynchings in California, and those mostly in the southern tier of counties, of persons convicted of cattle-stealing.”  In connection with lynching he related a serio-comic incident that occurred in Grass Valley in the early days.

Several fires had taken place in the town and the inhabitants were in consequence much excited.  A watchman on his rounds espied a light in a vacant log cabin, and entering, caught a man in the act of striking a match.  He arrested him and the populace were for taking summary vengeance.  A man known as “Blue Coat Osborne” cried out, “Let’s hang him!  Nevada City once hanged a man and Grass Valley never did!” This was an effective appeal, for the rivalry that has lasted ever since already existed.  Fortunately, wiser counsels prevailed; the man was subsequently tried and acquitted, it appearing that he was a traveling prospector who had merely entered the cabin in order to light his pipe!  In this connection, I may state that Mr. Maslin confirmed the story of the three friends in Nevada City, who attempted to withstand “the ordeal by fire.”

Mr. Maslin is justly jealous for the reputation of the Argonauts.  Perhaps Bret Harte’s miner, with his ready pistol, was as far from the mark as Rudyard Kipling’s picture of Tommy Atkins as “an absentminded beggar” — an imputation the real “Tommy” hotly resented.  At the same time, such stories as “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “Tennessee’s Partner,” not to quote others, prove Bret Harte conceded to the miner, courage, patience, gentleness, generosity and steadfastness in friendship.  If Bret Harte really “hurt” California, it was because, leaving the State for good in February, 1871, he carried with