Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-07-30
TRAVELLERS TALES.

When we see how rashly travellers us.
ually jump to conclusions about the coun-
tries and peoples they visit, as illustrated
by the tales they tell of our own country,
we may be warranted in doubling whether
the accounts given of little known lands
and races are for the most part of any real
value. 1t is indeed very much easier t.
obtain accurate information about the Uni.
ted States than it is to learn the habits,
thoughts, practices and institutions Of
Central African tribes. Yet every day
there arise evidences of the asst onishine
proneness to fallibility, even OF the most
acute and conscientious men, travelling
among people who speak the same Ian
guage with themselves, who possess SINH.
lar habits, religions, literature and tradi-
tions, and from whom the most abundant
information may be obtained on every con.
ceivable topic. A recent and more
than commonly remarkable instance
of this tendency to form erro-
neous conclusions has been given in
the case OF the famous war correspondent,
DIR. Russell, who visited this country with
the Duke of Sutherland. It may be said
in advance that the stay made by DIR.
Russell's party in the United States was
SO short as to render his opportunities for
close observation very limited. But since
it has been his special business for years to
make rapid cancellations. and since his
| faculties have been trained to observe keen.
ly, and to take in all the salient fea.
lures of the communities he visits, it might
have been supposed that he would have
escaped frequent blunders at least.
If, however, the cable dispatches about
his letters to the Morning Post may be
credited, he has been making statements
the falsity of which is marvellous, and in
deed almost grotesque. It is said for ex.
ample that some of his letters have been
devoted exclusively to the lawlessness,
murder, lynching, etc., in the Far
"West" by which term he signifies Cali
fornia, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado
and Texas. He is represented as animad-
verting severely upon the discreditable
condition in which ''many districts y
in the States and Territories referred to
are allowed to remain, and the general
idea to be derived from his statements is
| La h. \ hal 1rvl &c
the home of sanguinary desperadoes prin-
cipally; that shooting, cutting and hang
ing are the main recreations Of the people +;
that the law is condemned and openly
outraged continually; and that in fact
society is in the condition in which it was
portrayed many years ago in the romances
of Mayne Reid, Gustave Aimard, and
similar authors. He says, if he is not in.
correctly quoted, that he does not think
"there is in any part OF the world, or ever
has been in any civilized country, such
"shootings, Standings and murderings as
"have filed these lands with bloodshed. y
There is in this kind of statement SO
| large an element of the ludicrous as almost
| to disarm resentment at the perverslon OF
facts involved. There was time when
we should have been made extremely an
CRY by such wholesale misrepresentation, but
we have become more philosophical of late
years, and now we only wonder how man
of DR.. Russell's intelligence and shrewd-
ness could have been so grossly deceived.
His mistakes are the more surprising when
we remember that during the past year
| there has been more lawlessness, violence
and anarchy in one part of Great Britain
than probably ever existed in any part of
| the 90 Far West" since it was colonized by
Americans. 1t is difficult to understand
how an Englishman who has had the state
of Ireland before his eyes continually, who
has witnessed the utter failure of the law
there, who has seen his own Government
literally paralyzed by the problem thrust
upon it, who has had every day for months
to read of murders, outrages, arsens, mutt
lations, mobs, defeats of justice, every form
of contempt for and hostility to the con-
stituted authorities and the established
order of things, can go abroad, and at once
be shocked and Disguised by the infrequent
and abnormal instances of lawlessness
which he encounters in the remoter re.
gions of this republic, and can attribute
these outbreaks to prevalent hatred Of
and disregard for orderly government.
At his very door, as one may say. DIR.
Russell can find examples OF lawlessness
such as he might ransack the world for
parallels to, either in extent or character.
He can find there two-thirds of a popula-
ton sympathizing with the law-breakers,
and shielding them in every possible way.
He can find there juries who acquit MUIR
derers in the teeth of the most convincing
evidence. He can find there thousands Of
men who look upon assassination as lauda-
BILE. Yet he ignores all these evidences OF
defective civilization, and he can hardly
find words to express his establishment at
the apathy of the American people Of the
Far West, in the face of that saturnalia
of crime which exists only in his heated
| imagination. We know very well that he
| is mistaken as TO the social condition Of
this part of the country. We know that
California to-day is as free from crime as
Middlesex, to say the least. We know
that human life is respected here to such
an extent that our juries cannot be in
duced to hang for murder. In Col
orado there is some lawlessness, In
| evitably arising from the development