The weekly Arizona miner., 1870-07-09
Law and Lawlessness.

Law and Lawlessness
 We'll may we exclaim, whither, oh, whither are we drifting when, in addition to the horrid, cruel, cold blooded murders that arc almost daily committed by savage Indians, within the confines of ths Territory, civil ized CD men--Americans and Mexicans- quarrel about frivolous matters, and without stopping to allow their tiger passions to sub side, hastily resort to deadly weapons to set tie their disputes, and kill or main each oth- CT. In saying this we do not wish to be un- derstood as alleging or insnuating that all citizens of Arizona who have misunderstood ings act thus desperately, fiendshy, wan tonly and unlawfully. Far from it. The great majority of our people are remarkably quiet, cool and law abiding. But, there is no denying the fact that the Territory has among it's population, very many bad, pas sionate men, who are but too ready to stain her annals with cTime-bring reproach upon her, and earn for themselves the ignominous name of murderers. Now, this ought not to be 80. Human life is too precious to be vio- lently taken, or jeopardized by creatures who have not the power to restore it,-more es- pecially the lives of white men, in country like this, where the race is scarcely able to protect itself from the natural born red mur- derers who, unfortunately, occupy it with us, and unless the laws are strictly enforced unless criminals are punished, crime and law lessness will increase; armed bullies will ter rorize over law-abiding citizens; patience will cease to be a virtue, and the virtuous, honest, law-abiding portion of the commu- nity will arise in their might, and sriag the last murderous william Into eternity, there to atone for crimes committed upon this Earth. Of course there are instances upon record and such instances may again occur-where men have been impelled,-ye compelled,- to take the lives of others in order to save their own, but, such cases have been of rare occurrence, and it is our earnest prayer that, in the future they will be less frequent. In moralizing thus, we must not overlook the fact that the almost universal custom in vogue among our people of carrying deadly weapons has been one great motive for the numerous blood-letting scrapes that have dis graced and blackened the fair fame of our Territory, and we hope that the time is near at hand when the cause that compels this general arming will be done iaway with. Were there no hostile Indians in the Terri tory, citizens would not be ander the neces- sity of 'fortifying..' themselves, with deadly weapons, and could go around with those on- lv which God has given them-their arms and tongues-weapons which, although capa ble of inficting considerable injury, scarcely ever destroy life.
 The foregoing remarks are necessary cor. | rollary to the numerous crimes that have re. gently been committed by civilized CD peo- | pie in this Territory-crimes, at whose men tion peaceable citizens shudder Some oi these are, the recent murder of Bradley, in saloon in this town; the shooting of Garcia at Florence, in Pima county; the murderou, attack upon Mir. Duffield, at Tucson, and the desperate fandango affray at the same place short time ago. It matters not that som' of the persons killed and maimed in thes, bad men. That does not, cannot justify tn, onslaughts made upon them, and we hop, that our citizens will look upon it in thi, light, when they come to do justice betweer man and man, according to the laws of tn, Territory.