There were in California the élite of the most desperate and consummate scoundrels from every part of the world; and the unsettled state of the country, the wandering habits of the mining population, scattered, as they were, all over the mountains, and frequently carrying an amount of gold on their persons inconvenient from its very weight, together with the isolated condition of many individuals, strangers to every one around them, and who, if put out of the way, would never have been missed--all these things tended apparently to render the country one where such ruffians would have ample room to practice their villainy. But, thanks to Lynch law, murders and robberies, numerous as they were, were by no means of such frequent occurrence as might have been expected, considering the opportunities and temptations afforded to such a large proportion of the population, who were only restrained from violence by a wholesome regard for the safety of their own necks. And after all, the fear of punishment of death is the most effectual preventive of crime. To the class of men among whom murderers are found, it is probably the only feeling which deters them, and its influence is unconsciously felt even by those whose sense of right and wrong is not yet so dead as to allow them to contemplate the possibility of their committing a murder. In old States, however, fear of the punishment of death does not act with its full force on the mind of the intending criminal, for the idea of the expiation of his crime on the scaffold has to be preceded in his imagination by all the mysterious and tedious formalities of the law, in the uncertainty of which he is apt to flatter himself that he will by some means get an acquittal; and even if convicted, the length of time which must elapse before his ultimate punishment, together with the parade and circumstance with which it is attended, divests it in a great measure of the feelings of horror which it is intended to arouse.