The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-04-04
SANDY BEND JUSTICE.
Not So Much Law as the Looks of the
Thing.

sssS@ 81 Here is hathos in my voice and
tears IN my eyes this morning have
when the Cinnamon, and dogs had
/ been crowded back to the door and the
| constable had opened court in due and
ancient form. After looking over the
| audience and wjping his eyes His
| Honor continued:r 49,
with the past this morning, and there
| is humiliation in my soul and grief in
my heart. We have got to look back
| only ten years to see a happy COM
munity here. There was no railroad
| there was no newspapers bowling for
| what they call civilizations; there were
! no shyster lawyers and no, lawsuits.
Every man was his own law. If he
| had a grievance against fellowman
| he buckled on his guns and had it out
| in a friendly way, instead of bowling
for courts and lawyers and juries.
When you saw a man wearing two
guns you didn't wonder. whether they
were for use or ornament. You took
care of yourself and expected every
body else to do the same.
I'VE had lynching- bees for the bene-
fit of the public morals.
1--WE had funerals without any
fringes. ..
1.-THE horse thief had to travel faster
than a bullet
any Chinaman was glad to dig a grave
for a dollar ga $50. .--. - q. -=5er
1--WE respected the glorious constftu-
ton under which we lived, and we
didn't put off plunking a man. till to-
morrow when we could do it. today.
when a man doubted our word he
had to be lightning on the draw:
I'VE had with US such patriots as
Rocky Mountain. Joe, Red-Handed
Pete, Terrible Bill, Bloody Sam, Saw
Tooth Hank, Man-Killer Tom and
Ferocious Abe. and the dove of peace
lowered over Sandy Bend from morn
I'm those old days a MAJ ~as a
man. If he failed to bluff a clubhouse
on two small pairs he expected to be
sho, and only asked for two min
utes in which to say his prayers and
give away his guns. If he happened
to get a hand of four aces he was
honored as he should be and sat on
the pinnacle of greatness until he got
tired and was ready to come off.
Weep for the old days, feAler-crit-
ters-let your tears flow for the past
and gone, for you will never, never see
those days again. They have fed and
went, and we have got civilization and
lawsuits and rheumatism and delirium
tremens and graft and lying and
cowardice in their places.
There was a time when one could
stroll out in the morning in this town
of Sandy Bend to commune with ma
ture and feel that it was good to be
alive, and pass six or seven dead men
before his communing was over with.
How is it now? There is no nature to
commune with any more. She's all
run to real estate and insurance and
the Monday washing Tapping in the
back yards, same as they tapped in
Athens when that town was at the
head of the civilized world.
DO you encounter Terrible Bill as
you saunter up and down Slaughter
Avenue? Not any. You meet a. can
vasser for a life insurance company in
his place. Right on the very corner
where Saw-Tooth Hank killed his
seventh man you now find a clothing
store and a man to pull you in to see
the bargains.
Us it any wonder. that I choke up
when I think of these things-when I
am made TO realize how we have de-
generated in the few years? Can you
call me weak and womanish when you
behold these tears? In coming to this
court this morning had to pass three
different corners where I myself had
shooting scrapes in the long ago and
brought down my man.
However, to the case before us this
morning. The world has changed, and
we have changed with it. Over
thar sits Joe Speers. and he hain't
feeling a bit comfor table. In the