scandalous reading. An appetite for personalities developed, and these
derogatory remarks ordinarily led to personal encounters. The streets
became battle-grounds of bowie-knives and revolvers, as rivals hunted
each other out. This picture may seem lurid and exaggerated, but the
cold statistics of the time supply all the details.

The politicians of the day were essentially fighting men. The large
majority were low-grade Southerners who had left their section, urged by
unmistakable hints from their fellow-citizens. The political life of
early California was colored very largely by the pseudo-chivalry which
these people used as a cloak. They used the Southern code for their
purposes very thoroughly, and bullied their way through society in a
swashbuckling manner that could not but arouse admiration. There were
many excellent Southerners in California in those days, but from the
very start their influence was overshadowed by the more unworthy.
Unfortunately, later many of the better class of Southerners, yielding
to prejudice and sectional feeling, joined the so-called "Law and Order"
party.

It must be remembered, however, that whereas the active merchants and
industrious citizens were too busy to attend to local politics, the
professional low-class Southern politician had come out to California
for no other purpose. To be successful, he had to be a fighting man. His
revolver and his bowie-knife were part of his essential equipment. He
used the word "honor" as a weapon of defense, and battered down
opposition in the most high-mannered fashion by the simple expedient of
claiming that he had been insulted. The fire-eater was numerous in those
days. He dressed well, had good manners and appearance, possessed
abundant leisure, and looked down scornfully on those citizens who were
busy building the city, "low Yankee shopkeepers" being his favorite