St. Paul daily globe., 1888-02-13
HIP-POCKET LAW.
Maj. Biles, Of Nevada, Argues Its
Superiority to the Statute Vari-

ETY..
"Wien went over to London first to
place a mine," said Maj. Biles, OF Ne
Vada, rocking himself in one of the
rustic chairs of the Palace barroom,
says the San Francisco Examiner, lit
made me mad the way l was taken care
OF: 1t was policeman here to tell you
not to go there, and policeman there
to tell you not to go here, a guard to
lock you up in the car for fear you'd fall
out and get killed, and so on. Then the
bars were closed Oh Sunday and you
found the museums and every place but
the churches padlocked. 1t was law,
law, law everywhere till l was sick of
the law, and I'd have turned anarchist
if the anarchists had been invented
then. tell you L was mighty glad to
get back to the COmstOck, where every
body nearly carries his own law in his
hip-pocket."
.'That must have been dreadful
state of society,"" suggested gentleman
from New Haven.
mo. Sir" said the major, sit wasn't.
1t was about the best state of society |
know of. 1t made you look out for
yourself and be careful of stepping Oh
other fellows toes. Somebody was shot
every night almost"
Good graciousF'
"And the man for breakfast generally
deserved to be served up," added the
major.
Il tell you it's good thing to live in
community where men who ought to
be killed get killed.
But" objected the gentleman from
New Haven, ''were you not constantly
in danger of your life?'
''Not at all. There's no place on
earth where man is so safe from harm
as a pistOl-ruled mining camp, SO long
as he minds his own business and does
the square thing. The fighting you
read so much about is confined pretty
strictly to the toughs. They don't
bother respectable people. The chance
OF vigilance committee keeps them
straight in that direction. The princi-
pal danger to men who are not tOughS is
from flying bullets, and there's a rem
edy for that. / remember | was stand
ing in front of the Delta, OH G street,
one evening talking to Capt. Lord, the
inland revenue collector, when two fel-
lows got to punching each other right
near us, and one pulled what all
hands thought was gun. There was
unanimous scatter. L hOpped into
doorway and peeped out. Capt. Lord was
standing in the middle of the street
Will ilio SIA-S1iOOlcI Ill HIS Ilduu, NdlcI-
ing the two men who had cliEched and
went rolling over peanut stand into
the gutter. The one Oh top, who was
known as Red Mike, jabbed away at
the face and body of the under chap
with the supposed pistol. 1t was really
knife, and he hatcked his subject all
to pieces. We tore him off. l helped
to raise the cut chap to his feet. He
walked with us few steps and then
raised his hand to his bleeding head
and said:
"sWhere'S my hat?'
sit was fiShed out of the gutter and he
put it on. He went step or two further
and stopped.
"'Boys," he said, 'it's no go. Pm
Mikes meat Then he sighed, MUIR
INJURED family, . him. and tainted.
He died next day.
What were you doing out there in
the street with your gun" asked Cap
tain Lord.
"'Well,' he said, I've come near be-
ing hit half dozen times when fellows
were engaged in fights in which / had
no concern, and Fve made up my mind
that hereafter Pm going to have my
share OF the shooting as we'll as of the
danger. Fm going to take hand from
this out, and these fellows, when they
begin muss, will look around and in
quire where / am"
"And good plan. too," declared the
major. ''If good citizens on the frontier
would follow Capt. Lords plan, the
toughs would be even more careful
than they are about wild shooting. Yet,
after all, there's not as much danger
from this course as there is of being
run over here by your cable cars''
''And this Red Mike, this murderer,
ne was hanged?" inquired the gentle
man from New Haven.
Lord, no." laughed the major.
''Mike, when he wasn't drunk, was
bricklayer, and he assisted in building
the county jail. Having an eye to the
future, he thoughtfully left a weak
spot low down in the wall, ana one
night shortly after his arrest, he opened
it and walked off, generously taking all
the other prisoners with him. The last
l heard OF Mike was that he'd had an
arm shot off by a gambler down in
Tombstone"