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
epithet.
Examined at close range, in contemporary documents, this individual has
about him little of romance and nothing whatever admirable. It would be
a great pity, were mistaken sentimentality allowed to clothe him in the
same bright-hued garments as the cavaliers of England in the time of the
Stuarts. It would be an equal pity, were the casual reader to condemn
all who eventually aligned themselves against the Vigilance movement as
of the same stripe as the criminals who menaced society. There were many
worthy people whose education thoroughly inclined them towards formal
law, and who, therefore, when the actual break came, found themselves
supporting law instead of justice.
As long as the country continued to enjoy the full flood of prosperity,
these things did not greatly matter.
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