The Press.
London, England, 1854-11-18 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

met them, to give such consolation as his holy office would
afford. But their conduct, notwithstanding the desire on
the part of all to afford them every comfort their position
was susceptible of, continued reckless and indifferent, even
to the last moment. Butler alone was affected. He wept
bitterly, and excited much sympathy by his youthful ap-
pearance, being but twenty-one years of age. His com-
panions begged him " not to cry, as he could the but
once l "
The sun was setting when they arrived at the place of
execution. The assembled spectators formed a guard around
a small alamo, or poplar-tree, which had been selected for
the gallows. It was fast growing dark, and the busy move-
ments of a large number of the associates of the con-
demned, dividing and collecting again in small bodies at
different points around and outside of the party, and then
approaching nearer to the centre, proved that an attack waa
meditated, if the slightest opportunity should be given.
But the sentence of the law was carried into effect.
The entire proceedings were intensely interesting, and
the scene of a character which none present desired ever
again to witness. The calm but determined citizens on the
one side, and the daring companions of the condemned
wretches on the other, remained throughout keenly on the
watch: the first for the protection of life, and the support
of good order in the community ; the other with the malicious
eyes of disappointed and infuriated demons, who, to rescue
their companions, would have been willing to sacrifice a
hundred additional lives.
In reading of murders and violent deeds like
these, persons are often apt to conceive too un-
favourably of the countries in which they
occur. They forget the records of crime in
several of the southern capitals of Europe,
and they shut their eyes to the facts constantly
recorded in some of the Southern States of
America. The difficulty of finding a police
force against characters such as infest the
Californian and Texan " borderers," or ban-
ditti, may be pronounced impossible. They
can be extirpated only by the presence of
numerous cities and towns. In such countries
travelling for years to come can never be safe
except with armed parties. Lynch law would
appear to be equivalent in such a state of
things to our " Suspension of Habeas Corpus'
Desperadoes like the American and British
outcasts who swarm through the woods and
hills of Texas and California can expect only
the fate of wolves, and, like the wolves, they
must recede before civilisation.
In describing the residence of Mr. Joseph
Osborne, near San Francisco, Mr. Bartlett

writes :
Mr. Osborne's place was the most beautiful and pic•
turesque I had seen in the valley. In fact, it was the only
house wherein there was any attempt at taste and comfort;
for the country was too new to expect much in this way
yet. But even his was a small and unpretending cottage
after the New England fashion. The valley here is about
four miles in width. Where it opens on St. Pablo Bay it
is about six miles, but it gradually contracts towards the
north. At the entrance it is an open plain, destitute of
trees, and covered with luxuriant grass; but here it
assumes a new aspect, such a one, too, as 1 had not before
seen in the country. It is now studded with gigantic
oaks, some of them evergreen, though not so close toge-
ther as to render it necessary to cut any way to prepare
the land for cultivation. These magnificent oaks are
found sometimes in long lines, and again in clusters of
twenty or thirty, forming beautiful groves; then again a
space of ten or twenty acres will occur without a single
tree. If this romantic valley were transferred to the oldtr
countries of Europe it would be taken for the domain of a
prince or a nobleman. It answers to the idea one has of
the old and highly-cultivated parks of England, where
taste and money have been lavished with an unsparin
or
g
hand through many generations. As one emerges from
enters each grove he involuntarily expects some venerable
castle or mansion to appear, or to find himself among
some secluded villages. lint in the entire length of the
valley there are no houses to be found within a less dis-
tance than five miles of each other, and theie too of the
moat humble and unpretending character. What is
singular, and to me unaccountable, in these groves of large
trees is, that there are no young ones, none but the
venerable and full-grey/1i oaks, which, doubtless, for cen-
turies have held exclusive sway over this wide-spread and
beautiful domain. Nor is there any undergrowth of other
trees and shrubs. I can only account for this dellciency
by attributing it to fires since the occupation of the counby
by the Spaniards ; or by supposing that the immense herds
of catle, whicfur a cetury past have occupied the valley,
have browsed upon then shrubs and young trees until they
destroyed them, and afterwards kept down the shoots a
they sprang up.
Writers who mention facts of ordinary oc-
currence as if they were singular phenomena
display their own superficiality. Nothing can
be more flimsy and futile than the reflections
in the foregoing passage. There is nothing
" unaccountable " in the absence of young
trees from old oak woods. The thing is seen
every day. When oak timber is verging npon
fifty years or so, young trees are as oftenand a
pre-
sent as otherwise. But after a century
half, with the interwoven branches over head,
and the extended ramification beneath, the
smaller timber utterly perishes and gerraina