QAVENANT 00: WAND8EGONO - H 8T. J SINNERS AND SAINTS A TOUR ACROSS THE STATES, AND ROUND THEM THREE MONTHS AMONG THE MORMONS PHIL ROBINSON ' * // * AUTHOR OF IN MY INDIAN GARDEN," " UNDER THE PUNKAH, "NOAH'S ARK," ETC., ETC. NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY Limited t. Ipunstan's jouse FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G. 1892 [All rights reserved] BY THE SAME ATTTHOR. Small post %vo, 260 //., f/0^, 2*. ; *'// tfa^J, 2f. 6cent piece, two 5o-cent pieces make one quarter, five quarters make one nickel, five nickels make one cent, and " quite a lot " of cents make one fortune. So at it he goes again, trying to foot up a satisfactory balance with thousands for units and " busts " before he gets to the end of the sum. Leadville itself as I first saw it, ringed in with snow- covered hills, a bright sun shining and a slight snow falling, remains in my memory as one of the prettiest scenes in my experience. In Switzerland even it could hold its own, and triumph. I wandered about its streets and into its shops and saloons, curious to see some of those men of whom I had heard so much ; but whatever may have been their exercises with bowie-knife and pistol at a later hour of the day, I was never more agreeably disappointed than by the manners and bearing of the Leadville miners early in the morning. There is nothing gives a man so much self-reliance as having thick boots on. This fact I have evolved out of my own consciousness, for when I was out in the Colonies I often tried to analyze a certain sense of " independence " which I found taking possession of me. The climate no doubt was exceptionally invigorating, and I was a great deal on horse- back. But I had been subjected to the same conditions else- where without experiencing the same results. And after a great deal of severe mental inquiry, I decided that it was rny thick boots! And I was right. No man can feel properly capable of taking care of himself in slippers. In patent- 44 Sinners and Saints. leather boots he is little better, and in what are called " summer walking-shoes" he still finds himself fastidious about puddles, and at a disadvantage with every man he meets who does not mind a rough road. But once you be- gin to thicken the sole, self-reliance commences to increase, and by the time your boots are as solid as those of a Colorado miner you should find yourself his equal in " independence." And some of their boots are prodigious. The soles are over an inch thick, project in front of the toes perhaps half an inch, and form a ledge, as it were, all round the foot. What a luxury with such boots it must be to kick a man ! The rest of the costume was often in keeping with the shoe leather, and in every case where the wearers did not belong to the shops and offices of the town, there was a general attention to strength of material and personal comfort, at a sacrifice of appearance, which was refreshing and unconventional. They are a fine set, indeed, this miscellaneous congregation of nationalities which men call " Colorado diggers." There is hardly a stupid face among them, and certainly not a cowardly one. And then com- pare them with the population of their native places the savages of the East of London, the outer barbarians of Scandinavia, the degraded peasantry of Western Ireland ! The contrast is astonishing. Left in Europe they might have guttered along in helpless poverty relieved only by intervals of crime, till old age found them in a workhouse. But here they can insist on every one pretending to think them "as good as himself" (such is, I believe, the formula of this preposterous hypocrisy), and, at any rate, may hope for sudden wealth. Above all, a man here does not go about barefooted, like so many of his family "at home," or in ragged shoe-leather, like so many more of them ; but stands, and it may even be sleeps, in boots of unimpeach- In Leadville. 45 able solidity. So he goes down the street as if it were his own, planting his feet firmly at every step, and, not having to trouble himself about the condition of the footway, keeps his head erect. Depend upon it, thick boots are one of the secrets of " independence " of character. But Leadville, this wonderful town that in four years sprang up from 300 to 30,000 inhabitants, is not entirely a city of miners. On the day that I was there larger numbers than usual were in the streets, in consequence of an election then in progress holding out promises of unusual entertainment. Besides these there is, of course, the permanent population of commerce and ordinary business ; and I was struck here, as I had not been before since I left Boston, with the natural phenomenon of a race reverting to an old type. Boston reminded me at times of some old English cathedral city. Leadville was like some thriving provincial town. The men would not have looked out of place in the street, say, of Reading, while the women, in their quiet and somewhat old-fashioned style of dressing, reminded me very curiously of rural England. Indeed, I do not think my anticipations have ever been so completely upset as in Leadville. All the way from New York I have been told to wait " till I got to Colorado " before I ventured to speak of rough life, and Leadville itself was sometimes particularized to me as the Ultima Thule of civilization, the vanishing-point of refine- ment. But not only is Leadville not "rough;" it is even flirting with the refinements of life. It has an opera-house, a good drive for evening recreation, and a florist's shop. There were not many plants in it, it is true, but they were nearly all of them of the pleasant old English kinds geraniums, pansies, pinks, and mignonette. Two other shops interested me, one stocked with mineral specimens 46 Sinners and Saints. malachite, agate, amethyst, quartz, blood-stone, onyx, and an infinite variety of pieces of ore, gold, silver, lead, iron, copper, bismuth, and sulphur with which pretty settings are made, of a quaint grotto-work kind, for clocks and ink- stands. The other a naturalist's shop, in which, besides fossils, exquisite leaves in stone and petrified tree-fragments, I found the commencement of a zoological collection the lynx with its comfortable snow-coat on, and the grey moun- tain wolf not less cozily dressed ; squirrels, black and grey, " the creatures that sit in the shade of their tails," and the "friends of Hiawatha," with various birds the sage hen and the prairie chicken, the magpie (very like the English bird), and the " lark," a very inadequate substitute indeed for the bird that " at Heaven's gate sings," that has been sanctified to all time by Shelley, and the idol of the poets of the Old World and heads of large game, horned and antlered, and the skin of a "lion." It is a curious fact that every country should thus insist on having a lion. For the real African animal himself I entertain only a very qualified respect. For some of his substitutes, the panther of Sumatra and the Far East, the (now extinct) cat of Australia, and the puma of the United States, that respect is even more moderate in degree. "The American lion" is, in fact, about as much like the original article as the American " muffin " is like the seductive but saddening thing from which it takes its name. The puma, which is its proper name, is the least imposing of all the larger cats. It cannot compare even with the jaguar, and would not be recognized by the true lion, or by the tiger, as being a kinsman. It is just as true of lions as it is of Glenfield starch " when you ask for it, see that you get it" I admit that it is very creditable to America that in the great competition of nations she should insist on not being left behind even in the matter of lions, but surely it Negroes not necessarily Gentlemen. 47 would be more becoming to her vast resources and her undeniable enterprise if she imported some of the genuine breed, instead of, as at present, putting up with such a shabby compromise as the puma. This tendency to exaggeration in terms has I know been very frequently commented upon. But I don't remember having heard it suggested that this grandiosity must in the long-run have a detrimental effect upon national advance- ment. Presuming for instance that an American under- stands the real meaning of the word "city," what gross and ridiculous notions of self-importance second-class villages must acquire by hearing themselves spoken of as "cities." Or supposing that one understands the real meaning of the word " lady," how comes it that an ill-bred, ill-mannered chambermaid is always spoken of as a " lady " ? If the name is only given in courtesy, why not call them " princesses "at once and rescue the nobler word from its present miserable degradation ? I was in the Chicago Hotel and a coloured porter was unstrapping my luggage. I rang the bell for a message boy, and on another black servant appearing I gave him a written note to take down to the manager. But in that insolent manner so very prevalent among the blacker hotel servants in America, he said : " That other gentleman will take it down" " Other gentleman ! " I gasped out in astonish- ment ; " there is only one gentleman in this room, and two negro servants. And if," I continued, forgetting that, I was in America, and rising from my chair, " you are not off as fast as you can go, I'll " But the " gentleman " fled so precipitately with my message that I got no further. Now could anything be more preposterous than this poor creature's attempt to vindicate his right to the flattering title conferred upon him by the Boots, and which he in turn con- 48 Sinners and Saints. ferred upon the Barman, until everybody in the hotel, from the Manager downwards, was involved in an absurd en- tanglement of mutual compliments? It may of course be laughed at as a popular humour. But a stranger like myself is perpetually recognizing the mischief which this absurd want of moral courage and self-respect in the upper classes is working in the country. Nor have Americans any grounds whatever to suppose that this sense of " courtesy " is pecu- liar to them. It is common to every race in the world, and most conspicuous in the lowest. The Kaffirs of Africa and the Red Indians address each other with titles almost as fulsome as "gentleman," while in India, the home of courtesy and good breeding, the natives of the higher castes address the very lowest by the title of Maharaj\" great prince"). It is accepted by the recipient exactly in the spirit in which it is meant. He understands that the higher classes do not wish to offend him by calling him by his real name, and his Oriental good taste tells him that any intermediate appella- tion might be misconstrued. So he calls himself, as he is called, by the highest title in the land. There is no danger here of any mistake. Every one knows that the misfortune of birth or other " circumstances beyond his control " have made him a menial. But no one tells him so. He is "Matiaraj? For myself, I adopted the plan of addressing every negro servant as a " Sultan." It was not abusive and sounded well. He did not know what it meant any more than he knows the meaning of "gentleman," but I saved my self-respect by not pretending to put him on an equality with myself. At Leadville the hotel servants are white men, and the result is civility. But I was in the humour at Leadville to be pleased with everything. The day was divine, the land- scape enchanting, and the men with their rough riding- Under the Pine-trees. 49 costumes, strange, home-made-looking horses, Mexican saddles (which I now for the first time saw in general use) and preposterous "stirrups," interested me immensely. Of course I went up to a mine, and, of course, went down it. And what struck me most during the expedition ? Well, the sound of the wind in the pine-trees. It was a delightful walk away up out of the town, with its suburbs of mimic pinewood " chalets " and rough log- huts, and the hills all round sloping back from the plateau so finely, patched and powdered with snow-drifts, fringed and crowned with pine-trees, here darkened with a forest of them, there dotted with single trees, and over all, the Swiss magic of sunlight and shadow;