Arizona republican., 1899-02-19
DISARMAMENT IN ARIZONA.
How It Was Accomplished By Clever
 Fireman in Tombstone.

This newspaper talk about the l czar's disarmament scheme" said Z
 western man, to ., New Orleans Times 1 Democrat reporter, reminds me ot
 something that happened in Tomb stone, Arizona, when that place was the hottest hamlet on the whole iron tier. There were two factions in tcWn at the time, and everybody predicted that a big pitched battle was liable tc occur at any moment. The split grew
 out of an old quarrel between the cclN-
 boys and certain .self-cOnstituted au-
 thorities. and was complicated by so
 many side issues that nobody knew ex-
 actly what it was about. Ali that was
 perfectly clear was that two good
 sized crowds were zigzagging about
 town waiting for some trifle to start
 the fracas- Every member of beth
 parties Twas armed to the teeth and
 afraid to lay aside his shooting irons
 fer a moment lest he be taken at q
 disadvantage. In addition to the regu-
 l2tiOn 45 caliber Colts. most of them carried 'sawed-of' shctguns. These weapons were very popular in Arizona
 in the early days, and were ordinary breech lOaders with the barrels ampu- tated some eight inches above the locks, making just about the uglleSl machine that mortal man ever gaZed irto. When loaded with half a pint or sD of slugs it would kill everything in an acre lot except the gentleman di
 rectly behind the gun. Nobody ever thought Of firing the things from the shoulder, but turned them loose at the hip and the mOdish way of carrying them was by a loop of clothes line tied at one end to the belt and at the other to a ring in the breech plate. Local dudes used to go about tWirling them like mOnOcles. Well this armed peace went along without any special incl dent for over half year, greatly to the disgust Of everybody.
 You see, each side carried so much personal artillery and kept such sharp lookout that none of them cared to take chances on starting a row. That was the way things stC-l1 when the fire do9artmen5 got ready to give it's an nual ball, which was the great social event of the year The fire chief was a keen witted Irishman and he thought the situation over and called on both factions. Look here boys, he said in substance, you all want to come to the ball, and you cant do it with them scatter-guns hanging to you. If you happened to kick one eff WaltZing you might massacre the whole orchestra, and they're the only musicians in the town. So why net let all hands agree to unload everything until further mo- tice-guns, pistols, knives and knuckles-and just tu.n in and have a good time? I'll take care of the hardware and give each fellow check This interesting proposition was ia vcrably received, and after consider able quibbling about details an agree ment was drawn up and everybody pulled eff his weapons. There was great sigh of relief, and the ball was the biggest success on record. The truth is Tombstone was sick Of war, and tol the best of my recollection the general disarmament continued for five CT six months It was broken by typical street duel and then things got wild and wOolly again. It is certainly a curious uEswritten page of frontier history"