The elections of those days would have been a joke had they been not so tragically significant. They came to be a sheer farce. The polls were guarded by bullies who did not hesitate at command to manhandle any decent citizen indicated by the local leaders. Such men were openly hired for the purposes of intimidation. Votes could be bought in the open market. "Floaters" were shamelessly imported into districts that might prove doubtful; and, if things looked close, the election inspectors and the judges could be relied on to make things come out all right in the final count. One of the exhibits later shown in the Vigilante days of 1856 was an ingenious ballot box by which the goats could be segregated from the sheep as the ballots were cast. You may be sure that the sheep were the only ones counted. Election day was one of continuous whiskey drinking and brawling so that decent citizens were forced to remain within doors. The returns from the different wards were announced as fast as the votes were counted. It was therefore the custom to hold open certain wards until the votes of all the others were known. Then whatever tickets were lacking to secure the proper election were counted from the packed ballot box in the sure ward. In this manner five hundred votes were once returned from Crystal Springs precinct where there dwelt not over thirty voters. If some busybody made enough of a row to get the merry tyrants into court, there were always plenty of lawyers who could play the ultra-technical so well that the accused were not only released but were returned as legally elected as well. With the proper officials in charge of the executive end of the government and with a trained crew of lawyers making their own rules as they went along, almost any crime of violence, corruption, theft, or the higher grades of finance could be committed with absolute impunity. The state of the public mind became for a while apathetic. After numberless attempts to obtain justice, the public fell back with a shrug of the shoulders. The men of better feeling found themselves helpless. As each man's safety and ability to resent insult depended on his trigger finger, the newspapers of that time made interesting but scurrilous and scandalous reading. An appetite for personalities developed, and these derogatory remarks ordinarily led to personal encounters. The streets became battle-grounds of bowie-knives and revolvers, as rivals hunted each other out. This picture may seem lurid and exaggerated, but the cold statistics of the time supply all the details.