The power of a venal and subsidized press in moulding public opinion is a thing that can hardly be overstated, even by the _Voice of Reason_. When Pecos Dalhart told the willowy young man from the _Blade_ to take a running jump at himself he expressed as in no other way his absolute contempt for society. Young Mr. Baker of the Geronimo _Blade_ had the cigarette habit, he drank whiskey, and his private life would not bear too close inspection—he was hardly the man that one would choose as a censor of public character—and yet he held the job. When Pecos had broken up Boone Morgan's Kangaroo Court and spoiled the clever little court-house skit that Mr. Baker had framed up in his mind, that unprincipled young man had alluded to him, briefly and contemptuously, as a bad _hombre_ from the Verde country, a desperate fellow, etc., and had ended by saying that Sheriff Morgan, who was convinced that he had a dangerous criminal on his hands, was looking up his record in Texas. That was a lovely introduction for a man who was held for the grand jury—it reached the eye of nearly every qualified juror in the county and was equivalent to about seven years in Yuma. If Mr. Baker had been human this last admonition about the running jump would have raised it to fourteen years, but they were short of copy that day and Baker was only a reporter, so he sharpened up his pencil and wrote a little jolly, just to keep Boone Morgan in good humor. JAIL STRIKE A FAILURE "Mr. Pecos Q. Dalhart, who signalized his incarceration in the county jail by breaking up the prisoners' court, sending the Hon. Pete Monat and Michael Slattery to the hospital, and beating up the defenceless inmates with a chair, pulled off another little _soirée_ last night, though for a different cause. It appears that when Mr. Dalhart registered at the Hotel de Morgan he had been reading a certain incendiary sheet which panders to the unreasoning prejudice of the ignorant by a general rave against the established order of things. With his mind inflamed by this organ of anarchy Mr. Dalhart conceived the original and ambitious idea of destroying the last vestige of law, order, and government within the walls of his prison, and Sheriff Morgan, being of a tolerant disposition, decided to let him try it on and see how he enjoyed the results. Not every public officer would have had the courage to permit such a firebrand to carry on his propaganda unhindered, but Boone Morgan has merited the confidence of every citizen of Geronimo County by his fearless handling of the desperate men entrusted to his care, and the outcome of this episode is a case in point. Only three days were needed to convince the bad man from Verde Crossing of the error of his way. His first outbreak was to destroy all law and order—his second was to enforce the sanitary regulations of the prison. By his sudden