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 compare 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 unimpeachable 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 refinement.