force. But the free and slave states were equal in number; California
would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should
descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on
adjourning.

Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements
would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result.
Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as
a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were
elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that
had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew
nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own
salvation. The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its
genius for law and order asserted itself. Each camp elected its own
officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones, and
punished lawbreakers. Naturally theft was considered a more serious
crime than it is in ordinary communities. As there were no jails or
jailors, flogging and expulsion were the usual punishment, but in
aggravated cases it was death. Even after the state government had been
organized, indeed, the law for a short while permitted a jury to
prescribe the death penalty for grand larceny, and, in fact, several
notorious thieves were legally executed.

The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly
orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though
swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for
example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five
hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had
neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil
protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any