nine months old. Of these two classes one is respectable, the other not. The respectable class is that of the tradesmen; the one that is not consists of the rowdies, gamblers, and desperadoes, who have always formed the scum and dirt on the top of the foremost wave of advancing civilisation in America, and which that wave has now borne on to this place, and thrown them into it all together. [Sidenote: _‘Hardest Place, Sir, on this Continent.’_] The same causes, in the winter of 1866-67, made a place called Julesburg, about one hundred and fifty miles back from Shyenne, the point at which for the time extreme rowdyism, but of a lower class and on a smaller scale, was concentrated. Being then the extreme point of the Pacific Railway, the teamsters, freighters, and their hangers-on, and those from the neighbourhood who join such gatherings, were all here collected together. A town of waggon corals and wooden houses was soon formed in this way, containing about one thousand inhabitants—almost all men, and almost all reckless and violent characters. I asked a man who was himself connected with the freighting business, and had been part of last winter at Julesburg, how things had gone on at the place, and how order had been maintained? He said that at first no attempt at all was made to have things right, but that when it began to be known as a hell upon earth—almost every day two or three men being murdered or killed in rows—a few policemen were sent. They did not, however, prove of the slightest use, for they were quite unable to arrest anybody, or to hinder anything. If they had made the attempt, they would have been shot as readily as anyone else. When I was at the spot in February 1868, not a trace of the Julesburg of the previous year remained. Everything, both houses and men, had moved on to Shyenne. A prairie station on the railway alone marked the place where the town had been. The difference between last year’s and this year’s headquarters of rowdyism arises out of the better chance Shyenne has, as it is situated at the foot of the mountains, of maintaining a permanent existence, and if so of rapidly becoming a flourishing place of business. This has attracted to it a large number of storekeepers, who of course set up, as soon as they were strong enough to do so, the reign of vigilance committees and lynch law. In such places these are the means universally adopted for enforcing honesty and order. [Sidenote: _‘Hardest Place, Sir, on this Continent.’_]