I
have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with
a knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran
high) knocked down upon the public street and carried
insensible on board short-handed ships, shots
exchanged, and the smoke (and the company) dispersing
from the doors of the saloon. I have heard cold-minded
Polacks debate upon the readiest method of burning San
Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men and
women bawl and swear in the tribune at the Sandlot, and
Kearney himself open his subscription for a gallows,
name the manufacturers who were to grace it with their
dangling bodies, and read aloud to the delighted
multitude a telegram of adhesion from a member of the
State legislature: all which preparations of
proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed upon and
abolished by the mere name and fame of Mr. Coleman.
That lion of the Vigilantes had but to rouse himself
and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was
silenced. I could not but reflect what a strange
manner of man this was, to be living unremarked there
as a private merchant, and to be so feared by a whole
city; and if I was disappointed, in my character of
looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously without
the firing of a shot or the hanging of a single
millionaire, philosophy tried to tell me that this
sight was truly the more picturesque.
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