CHAPTER VII
PIONEER LAW AND LAWLESSNESS
California certainly contained what Borthwick describes as “the élite of the most desperate and consummate scoundrels from every part of the world”; but they were in a very small minority, and the rather common idea that the miners were a mass of brutal and ignorant men is a wild misconception. An English writer once remarked, somewhat hysterically, “Bret Harte had to deal with countries and communities of an almost unexampled laxity, a laxity passing the laxity of savages, the laxity of civilized men grown savage.”
Far more accurate is the observation of that eminent critic, Mr. Watts-Dunton: “Bret Harte’s characters are amenable to no laws except the improvised laws of the camp, and the final arbiter is either the six-shooter or the rope of Judge Lynch. And yet underlying this apparent lawlessness there is that deep law-abiding-ness which the late Grant Allen despised as being the Anglo-Saxon characteristic.”
The almost spontaneous manner in which mining laws came into existence, and the ready obedience which the miners yielded to them, show how correct is the view taken by Mr. Watts-Dunton. What constituted ownership of a claim; how it must be proved; how many square feet a claim might include; how long and by what means title to a claim could be preserved without working it; when a “find” should become the property of the individual discoverer, and when it should accrue to the partnership of which he was a member,—all these matters and many more were regulated by a code quickly formed, and universally respected. Thus a lump of gold weighing half an ounce or more, if observed before it was thrown into the cradle, belonged to the finder, and not to the partnership.
SACRAMENTO CITY IN 1852
In the main, mining rules were the same throughout the State, but they varied somewhat according to the peculiar circumstances of each “diggings”; and the custom was for the miners to hold a meeting, when they became sufficiently numerous at any point, and make such laws as they deemed expedient. If any controversy arose under them it was settled by the Alcalde.
In respect to this office, again, the miners showed the same instinct for law and order, and the same practical readiness to make use of such means as were at hand.[47] The Alcalde (Al Cadi) was originally a Spanish official, corresponding in many respects with our Justice of the Peace. But in the mining camps, the Alcalde, usually an American, was often given, by a kind of tacit agreement, very full, almost despotic powers, combining the authority of a Magistrate with that of a Selectman and Chief of Police.
The first Alcalde of Marysville was the young lawyer already mentioned, Stephen J. Field, and he administered affairs with such firmness that the town, although harboring many desperate persons,—this was in 1850,—gamblers, thieves and cut-throats, was as orderly as a New England village. He caused the streets and sidewalks to be kept clean and in repair; he employed men to grade the banks of the river so as to facilitate landing, and he did many other things for the good of the community, but really with no authority except that of common consent. Sitting as a judge, he did not hesitate to sentence some criminals to be flogged. There was no law for it; but it was the only punishment that was both adequate and practicable, for the town contained no prison or “lock-up.”