"The Stockaders, reversing the procedure of their kinsmen of the towns, live apart from one another, each proprietor depending wholly upon his own resources for sustenance and defence. Some of the larger estates contain several hundred acres enclosed by a strong timber stockade and otherwise defended against the assaults of enemies. The head of the family, or clan, as it might more properly be termed, is lord paramount within his own borders, even possessing the rights of life and death. But this last authority is rarely called in exercise, since these folk of the free country-side are naturally wholesome, honest, generous-hearted men, content to lead a simple life and coveting no man's honor or goods. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the stockade dweller is both provincial of habit and prejudiced of mind. He looks down upon the townsman as a huckster in private and a shuffler in public life, and this feeling of contemptuous enmity is fully returned by the cit, who regards the free proprietor in the light of a boor and a bully. Moreover, it rankles in the Houseman's breast that no Stockader pays a farthing of head-money to the treasure-chest of the Doomsmen. Now and then some well-to-do proprietor may suffer loss from cattle thieving and rick burning, but as often as not the marauders pay full price for all they get. And this leads us to a consideration of the Doomsman himself, that foul excrescence upon our modern body politic. Fortunately, history here speaks clearly, and we have only to listen to her voice. "It was a natural procedure, upon the coming of the Terror, to throw open the doors of the jails and other punitive institutions, thereby giving the wretched inmates an equal chance for life. The great mass of these degraded beings gravitated inevitably towards the cities, seeking plunder and opportunities for bestial dissipation that even the dread presence of the Terror could not restrain. Without hope and without fear, they rushed to the vulture's feast; here was wine and gold and soft raiment; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. "It was the ancient city of New York that received the vast bulk of this army of human rats; naturally so, since it was the supreme treasure-house of the western world. In such overwhelming numbers did these vermin come that the civil and military administrations were literally swarmed over. Between two days the outlaws were in complete possession, and the small remnant of the decent residents retired precipitately, preferring to meet death under the open sky rather than in company with their new masters.