The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-31

heap of abuse. You will find them ever 30
convenient, because when you get mad you
can snatch club and go out and take salts
faction out of q Chinaman. The native
American negro is getting 30 insolent, now,
that the patriot from Ireland cannot take
little recreation out of him without getting
into trouble. So the Cinnamon will afford
needed relief.
MODEST vILLAINY.
As evidence that Cinnamon are satisfied
with small gains / will remark that they drill
five holes into the edge of gold coins-drill
clear through from edge to edge-and save
the gold thus bored out, and fill up the hole
with some sort Of metallic composition that
does not spoil the ring of the coin. Their
counterfeiters put nine parts good metal and
only one part base metal in their bogus coins
and so it is very lucrative in the long run,
and the next thing to impossible to detect the
cheat. II is only greedy, bungling Christian
counterfeiters that blunder into trouble, by
trying to swindle their fellow creatures too
heavily.
DEsPERADoEs.
Another curious feature about California
life was the breed of desperadoes she reared
and fostered on her soil, and afterward dis
tributed over adjacent Territories through
her Vigilance Committees when she had had
enough of their exploits. These men went
armed to the teeth with monstrous revolvers,
and preyed upon each other. Their slightest
misunderstanding were settled on the spot
by the bullet; but they very rarely molested
peaceable citizens. They robbed and gam
bled and killed people for three or four years,
and then ''died with their boots on, as they
phrased it; that is, they were killed them
selves, almost Invariably, and they never
expected any other fate, and were very sell
dom disappointed.
SAM Drown.
Sam Brown, of Nevada, killed sixteen men
in his time and was journeying towards Es-
meralda to kill aseventeenth, who had stopped
the breath of friend of his, when a party of
law-abiding citizens waylaid him and slaugh-
tered him with shot guns. Mourners were
exceedingly scarce at his funeral. 1t is said
that Sam Brown called for drink at the bar
of the Slaughter House in Carson City one
morning "a saloon SO nicknamed because SO
many men had been killed in it), and invited
a stranger up to drink with him. The stranger
said he never drank, and wished to be ex-
cused. By the custom of the country that
was deadly insult, and 80 Brown very pro-
perly shot him down. He left him lying
there and went away warming everybody to
let the body alone, because it was his meat,
he said And it is said also that he came
back after while and made coffin, and
buried the man hiInself-though 1 never
could quite believe that-without assistance
Virginia City was full of desperadoes, and
some of the pleasantest newspaper reporting
/ ever did was in those days, because re-
ported the inquests on the entire lot of them,
nearly We had fresh one pretty much
every morning. Towards the last it was
melancholy to see how the material was run
ming short. Those were halcyon days.
don't know what halcyon days are, but that
is the proper expression to use in this con-
nection, believe.
JACK WILLIAMS.
Jack Williams was one of the luckiest of
the Virginia City desperadoes. He killed a
good many men. He was kind-hearted man,
and gave all his custom to poor undertaken
who was trying to get along. But by-and-by
somebody poked double-barrelled shotgun
through q crack while Williams was sitting at
breakfast, and riddled him at such a rate that
there was hardly enough of him left to hold
an inquest on-and then the poor unfortunate
undertal1er's best friend was gone, and he had
to take in his sign. Thus he was stricken in
the midst of his prosperity and his happiness,
for he was just on the point of getting mar
ried when Jack Williams was taken away
from him, and of course he had to give it up
then.
CEMETERIAL CURIosITIEs.
1t is said that the first twenty-sx graves in
the cemetery at Virginia City were those of
men who all died by the bullet. And the first
six in another of those towns contained the
bodies of desperate and five Of his victims
and there in the bosom of his family, made
dear to him by ties of blood, he calmly sleeps
unto this day.
MR.. sLADE.
At the Rocky Ridge station in the Rocky
Mountains, in the old days of overland stages
and pony expresses, had the gorgeous honor
of breakfasting with Mr.. Slade, the Prince OF
all the desperadoes, who killed twenty-s six
men in his time; who used to cut off his
victims ears and send them rs keepsakes to
their relatives; and who bound one of his
victims hand and foot and practised on him
with his revolver for hours together-a pro-
ceeding which seems almost inexcusable until
we reflect that Rocky Ridge is away off in the
dull solitudes of the mountains, and the poor
despersdoes have hardly any amusements.
Mr.. Slade afterward went to Montana and
began to thin ont the population as usual
for he took great interest in trimming the
census and regulating the vote--but finally
the Vigilance Committee captured and hanged
him, giving him just fifteen minutes to pre-
pare himself in. The papers said he cried on
the scaffold.
The Vigilance Committee is q wholesome
regulator in the new countries, and bad char
acters have lively dread of it. In Montans
one of these gentlemen was placed on his
mule and informed that he had precisely fif.
teen minutes to leave the country in. He
said, "Gents, if this mule don't balk fvel
answer"
But that is sufficient about the desperadoei
I merely wished to make passing mention o.