Rosebud County news. [volume] (Forsyth, Mont.) 1901-1906, 1902-08-21

refuses to ''go;" except to Ego off
from time to time thereby bulling the
price of burial lots, the stock of the
coffin trust and furnishing employment
to the architect of the 1owly epitaph.
Sec. 758, Vol. 4, Penal code. State of
Montana, says: Every person who
within the limits of any city or town
carries or bears concealed upon his
person, dirk, dagger, pistol. revol-
yer or other deadly weapon is punish
able by fine not to exceed 500. 90.
This section does not apply to peace
officers in discharge of their official
duty" There is your drastic anti
pistol packing law, and it is dollars to
doughnuts that half of the Legislators
who passed it had at the time of it's
enactment six shooters in their hip
pockets. The law prohibiting the
carrying of concealed weapons will be
more or less on the dead letter order
until men feel that gunpower is no
longer necessary to the protection of
their person. It is bad enough to be
arrested, fined or jagged but it is in
finite1y worse to feel the need of a good
''bul1 dog'' and have to do your own
barking. 1t seems to be possible for a
man to carry pistol in Montana for
decade and never be molested unless
he makes ''gun play, and then the
damage, which the law seeks to avert,
is done. Thousands of the best citizens
which Montana possesses have laid
aside their shooting irons as a tribute
of respect to the law of the state but
they are the very people who could be
trusted to carry them. The 'bad
man. element pays absolutely no at
tention to the statute and the result is
that the lawabiding are absolutely at
the mercy of the law1ess. The res
pectable citizen goes unarmed while
the brawler and the desperate are as
powerful for evil as ever. Perhaps,
however, the law would not be a good
one even if it could be universally en-
forced. Some poet has attributed the
invention of powder to his satanic
majesty. Be that as it may, powder is
certainly powerful factor of civili-
cation Men are far from equal physi-
cally but few grains of powder
makes the little four foot Sunday
school teacher and the six foot brag-
CART 'equally tall" With thorough
bred Colt trotting by his side the hum
blest citizen can cope with Jim Jeffr;es
himself. It is not bit of use to talk
about having courts and officers for the
protection of the person, a fellow can
not always have Dan Muir at his elbow
and not only that but there seems to be
exist a sort of an unwritten law in
this range country that is stronger
than that of the penal code, which de-
ClareS that man 2 coward who aDDealS
to the courts for redress after having
had it put all over him in a physical
encounter. And when the under
dog" in the rumpus does appeal to
the courts it is precious little satisfac-
faction to see a man fined a few dol
lars or jailed for couple of weeks
who has used his superior strength to
maui your pride in the dust. A revolt
yer is as great promoter of harmony
as it is of trouble. The blowhard
does not get so flippant with his inso-
lent lip nor so reckless with his fists
when he knows that his insolence and
discourtesy is liable to prove BOOM
erang that will be returned to him in
the shape of a chunk of metal. The
"bad man of the vest is almost a
thing of the past except in the Hole in
T..