Sunday was always a gala day. The miners then left their work and gathered about the public places in the towns. The stores were all open, the auctioneers specially eloquent on every corner in praise of their wares. Thousands of people crowded the thoroughfares, ready to rush in any direction of promised excitement. Horse-racing was among the most favored amusements. Prize rings were formed, and brawny men engaged at fisticuffs until their sight was lost and their bodies pommelled to a jelly, while hundreds of on-lookers cheered the victor. Hacks rattled to and fro between the several towns, freighted with drunken and rowdy humanity of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged respectability often walked, more often perhaps rode side by side on horseback, with noted courtesans in open day through the crowded streets, and seemingly suffered no harm in reputation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives flourished, and braggart oaths filled the air, as often as men’s passions triumphed over their reason. This was indeed the reign of unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with disgust and terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become part of it, and forget that they had ever been aught else. All classes of society were represented at this general exhibition. Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could not claim exemption. Culture and religion afforded feeble protection, where allurement and indulgence ruled the hour. Underneath this exterior of recklessness, there was in the minds and hearts of the miners and business men of this society, a strong and abiding sense of justice,—and that saved the Territory. While they could enjoy what they called sport even to the very borders of crime, and indulge in many practices which in themselves were criminal, yet when any one was murdered, robbed, abused, or hurt, a feeling of resentment, a desire for retaliation, animated all. With the ingathering of new men, fear of the roughs gradually wore away,—but the desire to escape responsibility, to acquire something and leave in peace, prevented any active measures for protection; and so far as organization was concerned, the law and order citizens, though in the majority, were as much at sea as ever.