But when Lynch law prevails, it strikes terror to the heart of the evil-doer. He has no hazy and undefined view of his ultimate fate in the distant future, but a vivid picture is before him of the sure and speedy consequence of crime. The formalities and delays of the law, which are instituted for the protection of the people, are for the same reason abolished, and the criminal knows that, instead of being tried by the elaborate and intricate process of law, his very ignorance of which leads him to over-estimate his chance of escape, he will have to stand before a tribunal of men who will try him, not by law, but by hard, straightforward common-sense, and from whom he can hope for no other verdict than that which his own conscience awards him; while execution follows so close upon sentence, that it forms, as it were, but part of the same ceremony: for Californians were eminently practical and earnest; what they meant to do they did “right off,” with all their might, and as if they really meant to do it; and Lynch law was administered with characteristic promptness and decision. Sufficient time, however, or at least what was considered to be sufficient time, was always granted to the criminal to prepare for death. Very frequently he was not hanged till the day after his trial. An execution, of course, attracted an immense crowd, but it was conducted with as little parade as possible. Men were hung in the readiest way which suggested itself--on a bough of the nearest tree, or on a tree close to the spot where the murder was committed. In some instances the criminal was run up by a number of men, all equally sharing the hang-man’s duty; on other occasions, one man was appointed to the office of executioner, and a drop was extemporized by placing the culprit on his feet on the top of an empty box or barrel, under the bough of a tree, and at the given signal the box was knocked away from under him. Not an uncommon mode was, to mount the criminal on a horse or mule, when, after the rope was adjusted, a cut of a whip was administered to the back of the animal, and the man was left suspended. Petty thefts, which were of very rare occurrence, were punished by so many lashes with a cowhide, and the culprit was then banished from the camp. A man who would commit a petty theft was generally such a poor miserable devil as to excite compassion more than any other feeling, and not unfrequently, after his chastisement, a small subscription was raised for him, to help him along till he reached some other diggings. Theft or robbery of any considerable amount, however, was a capital crime; and horse-stealing, to which the Mexicans more particularly devoted themselves, was invariably a hanging matter.