"Boys, that's a darned ugly tramp to them 'ere new diggins. What d'ye say if we licker-up now?" That was a peace-offering which dissipated whatever bitterness the mortification of being so badly victimized may have possessed. The jingle of glasses and the hearty inartistic rendition of the refrain of the familiar ditty, "For he's a jolly good fellow," by Happy Jack and Dancing Bill, quickly followed. The revelry which then set in disturbed Bummer Bob. It annoyed him to be thus rudely woke up. It annoyed him still more that he was not invited to participate in the bacchanalian festivity which had just been commenced. He was angry when he realized that Doc, his supplanter of the previous day in the good graces of Norway Flat, was at the bottom of it all. He approached his innocent rival, and, hissing something in his ear unintelligible to either of the others present, struck him a heavy blow in the face. That was the signal for open hostilities. Quicker than the story is told Doc and Bummer Bob grappled and fell. The struggle was short, sharp, and decisive. Two men rolled over and over on the floor; two knives gleamed in the early sunlight which penetrated the frosted panes of the windows of the Occidental. A few rapid passes and the struggle ended. But only one man rose, and that was Doc. He was unscathed, while the life-blood ebbed rapidly from the writhing body of Bummer Bob, ending his checkered career as he had often said he would: he had "died in his boots." At the time when the sanguinary conflict between Doc and Bummer Bob took place, Norway Flat was beginning to creep out of its primitive lawlessness, and some of the institutions of a more enlightened civilization than the one which had hitherto obtained were being introduced. The honored office of coroner had been established. It was true that its adoption was due more to a desire not to be outdone by other miningcamps, than to any necessity felt for it. It was generally conceded that the old way of disposing of such cases as would henceforth come within the coroner's jurisdiction was the most expeditious, and often the most satisfactory. The informal burial in a hurriedly dug grave was sometimes quickly supplemented by the consummation of a tragedy under the auspices of Judge Lynch. Coroner Kurtz's first inquest was held over the body of Bummer Bob, at the Occidental. He felt all the importance of the occasion. He selected representative men of Norway Flat as his jury, with Brown of the Occidental as foreman. He was very precise in his questioning; very careful in the manner in which he took down the answers. Happy Jack, Dancing Bill, and Barkeep, the only witnesses examined, were put through what he termed "a coursh of shproutsh," but their story was straightforward and corroborative. Notwithstanding the habitual recklessness of the pioneers of Norway Flat, they were on the whole a law-abiding people. Not that they heeded, in any sense, the written law of the land—they did not-but there was an unwritten law, which each one tacitly recognized. At times obedience to this common law had to be enforced at the pistol's mouth, and any infringement of it was always followed by a terrible punishment. Petty offenses were few, for each member of that community was at once guardian of the peace, judge, jury, and executioner. The statutory law was too slow and uncertain in its operation, and a sense of insecurity of life and property possessed those who placed their trust in it. Hence this broad principle was laid down: Where the laws of civilized life failed to give protection, they would protect themselves after whatsoever fashion circumstances dictated and their re sources warranted. This was the principle recognized by the jury in the verdict of justifiable homicide, presented through its foreman in the following crude form: "MR. CROWNER - We're 'greed on a vardick. We're 'greed that Bummer Bob passed in his checks, and we guess it sarved him right." down an avalanche of débris. Streams of liquid mud course between walls of cobbles. Here and there the jagged edges of the naked rock project — the ghastly skeleton of the once comely valley. A moving army of human workers, picturesquely attired, give it the appearance of a gigantic ant-hill, and a sound like the unbroken rumbling of distant thunder or the suppressed hum of a bee-hive ascends from these busy scenes. Overlooking the buried Flat there stands a new city whose buildings are substantial and elegant, and whose inhabitants enjoy a liberal measure of ease and comfort. But it bears no name calculated to awaken any reminiscence of the past. Only the old cemetery on the hill remains unchanged. No desecrating hand has disturbed the ashes of its inmates. Wind and weather only have affected its confines, and most of the rude tablets, which rough but kind hands placed at the heads of the mossgrown mounds, have long since mingled with the mold; but in a secluded corner a weather-worn shingle still stands from which this rudely carved inscription has not been effaced: Time has wrought wondrous changes since then in Norway Flat and its surroundings. Those who knew the Flat only as it was twenty years ago, would no longer be able to point out the spot on which it stood, for it is numbered among the mushroom towns which sprung up in a day to disappear in an hour. It lies "full fathoms five" deep, beneath an ocean of tailings, and its foibles and shortcomings have been buried with it. Every landmark by which it was formerly recognized has been obliterated. The well-wooded slopes of the surrounding hills have been denuded by a class of men of recent in-come, whose views of enterprise are infinitely broader than those of Norway Flat's fossorial pioneers. A net-work of flumes, scaffolding, pipes, and water-ways cover deep-furrowed banks, at whose base silvery, fan-like shafts batter, bursting into a shower of splinters, and bringing "THE LAST OF THE PIONEERS OF NORWAY FLAT." "DOC, THE ROPE - MAKERS. It seemed I walked beside the sobbing sea Of maidens, sporting, as it seemed to me. Who heaped the shining grains with either hand, While all the rest hung head upon the bosom, Love, and we make, lest we again should lose him, IN MEMORIAM. [BENJAMIN P. AVERY DIED IN PEKING, CHINA, NOVEMBER 8TH, 1875.] Just as our last form goes to press, news comes of the death of Honorable BENJAMIN P. AVERY, United States Minister to China, and late editor of the OVERLAND. The shock is so sudden we can hardly realize our friend has gone from our gaze forever. Have the cruel wires lied, or has his gentle spirit passed from this world of care and pain to "the land where all is peace?" Mr. Avery was in many respects a remarkable man. He typified the ripest fruitage of our western thought and culture. He was essentially Californian, but he represented the finer feminine side of California -California in those gentler moods of which we see too little. He had the freshness without the brusqueness of the frontier spirit. Perhaps no one person did so much to educate the people of the State in the right direction -to lift the thoughts of men above the sordid interests of the hour and the mean ambitions of personal gain. He embodied in his life and character that spirit of a broader culture, purer morals, and loftier aims which constitute the basis of all healthy growth. He loved California with an almost idolatrous love, but lamented its hard materialism, and strove to make it more worthy of its great destiny. And he was unwearying in his efforts to elevate and refine. The hours that other workers gave to rest and recreation he devoted to the building up of new æsthetic interests and the study of those gentler arts that uplift society and smooth down the sharp angles of our western life. He was one of those rare men who are estimated rather below than above their true value. His modesty made him shy; and some people, who but half knew him, made the mistake of thinking he lacked force. No man was more firm in upright purpose - could be more courageous in the assertion of honest conviction. His adherence to principle was firm and uncompromising. He was constitutionally incapable of putting a falsehood in print or perverting facts to partisan uses. His pen was never soiled by an attack upon private character. He abhorred with all the intensity of a pure soul the personalities of journalism. His capacity for work was marvelous. We can not recall a journalist, with perhaps the exception of the late Henry J. Raymond, who could write so rapidly, yet so pointedly and correctly. His well-stored mind poured forth its treasures in a rapid-flowing copious stream. He was equally ready in all departments of journalistic activity. He was an admirable dramatic critic, was well versed in the elementary principles of music, while in the specialty of art criticism he was without a rival among Californian writers. His editorials were models of clear statement and strong but elegant English, while all that he wrote was pervaded by a certain spirit of candor and a power of moral conscience that compelled attention and carried conviction. While the prevailing tone of his mind was serious, few writers could be more delightfully playful, more charmingly humorous. Socially Mr. Avery was very lovable. In him all the virtues seemed harmoniously combined. He was absolutely without guile, as he was without vices. His heart overflowed with love for his fellow. He could not bear to think ill of anyone, and if a sense of public duty compelled him to criticise, it was done so kindly, so regretfully, that censure lost half its sting. And his friendships were so firm and steadfast, his trust in those he loved so deep and unquestioning! Who that has felt the grasp of his manly hand, and looked into the quiet depths of his kindly eye, can ever forget the subtile influence that crept like a balm into his soul? He lived in and for his friends. Caring little for general society, his social world was bounded by a charmed circle of intimates. He was such a delightful companion: so fresh and bright and genial, so apt in repartee, so quaintly witty, so rich in various learning without taint of pedantry. To know him, to be much in his society, to feel the sweet influence of his pure life, was a boon and blessing. He is dead; but the seed of thought and culture he has sown has not fallen on barren ground. His work survives him. The interests he promoted and the institutions he helped found, are living monuments of his beneficent activity. We shall see him no more in the flesh, but his spirit will long be a pervading presence to hosts of loving hearts. Opinions. ETC. And now, as to opinions. Opinions are troublesome. I have had the measles, mumps, whooping-cough, matrimony, and nearly all the earlier ills that life is heir to, but now I have got opinions, and they make the most tedious, uncomfortable disease I have yet suffered. I do not know how an opinion gets into a fellow, but once in, it is assiduous always, and sometimes clamorous, to get out. Once out, if it is a bold opinion, it becomes covered with myriad parasitic additions, comments, sneers, fleers, jeers, and then pestilently flies home to roost and riot in the brain where it was hatched or housed. Yet a fellow must have opinions-everybody has them—or the indulgent world will say: "Ha-ka! out upon such a fellow. He has no opinions of his own." As if one man in nine hundred ever had an opinion of his own, or was capable of honestly and fully adopting the unmarred opinion of his neighbor. I tell you, opinions are terrible things. If a fellow-I say "fellow" instead of man, because we have in the world of opinion fellow-sisters, have we not?-if a fellow has opinions and expresses them, he will, by his very nature, be sensitive about them; and then all the callous, ingenious, thick-skinned plod-workers will lift up their voices and cry out: "Go to. He hath opinions—he hath expressed them. Now, verily, shall he live up to his opinions." Alas! for this poor fellow, the days of his peace are numbered; his "goose is cooked;" the enemy surrounds him, demanding not honorable surrender, but, dancing in critical war - paint and feathers, shouts for his continued slow torture. The inconsistent world clamors for consistency. Ah me! what a bilk "the world" is. Job "O'd" for two things-namely, an answer from the Almighty, and a book written by his adversary. Now, Job was several thousand years younger than I am, and in his inexperience failed to express himself. What he should have said is this: O! that mine adversary had written an opinion. Then I would have had him. Write a book! Why, there are books written which even "Solomon in all his glory" could make nothing of, as against friend or foe. But, mark you! No sooner did Elihu the Buzite (whose tribe is numberless on California Street) arise and even verbally proclaim his opinion, than down went the Buzite, and from that hour Job warmed into health, strength, and prosperity. Opinions must be supported, or they perish. What opinion had the fellow who bossed the contract of building the Sphinx? No doubt he had opinions running through his head, as he ordered about the busy swarm of Egyptian onion-eaters, while they hewed, hacked, chipped, cut, and carved the mysterious image; but he left his opinions unsupported, and now, like himself, they have perished. It takes money to support an opinion. It costs more to support an opinion than to carry on an ordinary Dutch fam, ily. An opinion without courage behind it is as a still-born baby-no hope in its early beauty, and a mere excuse for a funeral. With courage and plenty of money a fellow may support an opinion-otherwise not. How easy it is to exhort a bold honest newspaper: "Give it to them! Your opinions are correct." Alas! thou fool, knowest thou not that dollars are risked in the expression and impression of these "correct" opinions? What riskest thou in support of opinions? "Lip," and "lip" only. I mean this for you, O intellectual swaggerer! If you had lived in the days of Galileo, and the studious old man had met you, a prosperous upholder of the faith, and, taking you by the neighborly button, had stepped aside to whisper in your ear, “It turns!” "Ah! does it?" you question. "The world is a globe, and turns about, day unto day, with a rapid motion." |
