Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/208

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injury to  another  is  a  legal  wrong  whose  proper  prov- ince it is  the  law's  to  check. With diminished  at- tempts at religious  proselyting,  a  laissez-faire  system in personal  morals,  and  less  political  engineering,  our civilization would  speedily  assume  fairer  and  purer proportions. Let parents  and  teachers  build  up  them- selves and the  young  in  the  strength  of  personal  re- sponsibility and moral  rectitude,  for  in  no  other  way can certain  evils  be  overcome ;  then  we  may  leave  law for thieves  and  murderers. On the  steamer,  bets were made  on  daily  distances,  on  the  time  of  arrival at any  point,  on  the  height  or  weight  of  any  person or thing,  on  the  time  in  which  coat  and  boots  could be taken  off  and  put  on,  and  on  anything  that  hap- pened to strike  the  fancy,  however  absurd.

During the  long  voyage  there  was  ample  time  to take  a  survey  of  the  past,  to  reckon  accounts  with providence, to  apply  the  touchstone  of  experience  to natural  qualities;  a  farther  vision  opened  to  the  eye, sight was  not  bounded  by  the  horizon. The im- prisoned traveller saw  clearly  back  to  his  boyhood  in a  swift  series  of  pictures  like  those  which  flash  upon the brain  of  a  drowning  man ;  and  when  his  thoughts were turned  toward  the  future,  it  was  with  a  clearer and more  discriminating  survey  than  any  hitherto made.

In these  early  days  of  California  voyaging,  there were always  two  or  three  among  the  passengers  who set up  for  geniuses,  self-constituted  court  fools. Usu- ally they were  young  men  rustically  or  provincially bred, who  were  now  for  the  first  time  absent  from home, and  who  seemed  to  feel  that  the  time  and  place had arrived  in  which  their  talents  should  unfold. They sought  fame  in  various  ways — by  much  and heavy walking  about  the  ship,  by  scowling,  by  swag- gering, by boisterous  talking  and  coarse  laughing, and by  practical  jokes  played  to  the  infinite  disgust of their  supposed  admirers. Sometimes they  were joined by  brazen-faced  or  ambitious  young