Cheyenne record., 1913-12-11
BANDITS Of 2 ERAs
Outlaw, His c,-temporaries in
Scott's Day ard Ours.
Rob Roy and Jessie Jame-soth
Maurauders Had Their Friends
and Each Was Renowned for
Deeds Of Kindness.

New York.-f we are not certain
rs to the date of the death of Rob
Roy. 1t may tighten our bushes to re-
member that Sir Walter Scott looked
on it as doubtful, says a writer in
the Living Church. Reports varied:
the best authenticated tradition
showed that the daring McGregor had
outlived his widest deeds, and we
may take it for granted that he died
in the latter part of the decade be-
tween 1870 and 1740. Assuming that,
we have some interesting compari-
sons to make. A. man whose real life
was as sensational as that OF the
feudal mess trooper. chieftain who
levied blackmail on peaceful cattle
faisers, who plundered his enemies,
who long dreamed Of upsetting Han
over and setting up Stuart. char
acter half seventeenth century and
half sixteenth, was living during a
part at least of George Washington's
infancy. Franklin may have heard
many story of him. Paul Jones may
have sailed with men who had caught
glimpse Of Rob Roy through coast
and island traditions.
Take Rob Roy's own strong person
ality and add wha. the genius OF
Scott has thrown around him, and
he is-a fascinating last of the Mohi-
cans" type. Part of the ancient Scot
land of claymore and coronach had
gone out with the civil wars Of Crom-
wells day, the revolution had cut
short many life, the uprising Of
1715 had quenched some bold spirits,
exiles had died heart broken in for
eign courts and cloisters. Rob Roy
was link with the past. He fright
ened many who yet admired him,
even as his estimable kinsman, Bailie
Nichol Jarvie, did. But a few dates
may startle even some who have read
Scott's noble story half dozen
times. and it is well to think Of some
who had come before Rob Roy had
gone.
At the time the outlaw breathed his
last Joseph Butler had written the
Analogy, and George Berkeley was
past fifty. William Pitt had grown to
mans estate. Edward Gibbon had
trodden many a step on the road to
learning. Voltaire was in his forties.
Adam Smith and William Blackstone
were launched into boyhood. Burke
was an active child. Button was
man of some years standing. Elderly
men of scientific tastes looked back
on royal society gatherings and on in
genious hypotheses as the elderly
men among ourselves look back to
the Suez canal and the Pacific rail-
roads. The death Of Rob Roy may
have been exciting news to the ard
ent young John Wesley, who never
forgot his romantic loyalty to Mary
queen of Scots. and to young Samuel
johnson, who heaved many a sigh for
the luckless house of Stuart. What
most of us would call the real ad-
vance of the eighteenth century had
well started before the old freebooter
passed from the earth. After Rob
Roy's death, it is true, there was an
other Jacobite FASH and some brave
men paid with their heads for the up
rising of AS. but the cool judges saw
that the old Stuart times were at an
end. No one after all has so clearly
shown us how impossible it all was
as the novelist who admitted that 1t
was 60 years since.
Some day the fragments yet re-
naming of Jesse James life will be
gathered together by ono who passes
over the transition stages of history.
Robbers there have been, and will be,
but few of the young people of today
understand how large a territory
owned Jesse James as q sort of