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Show THE CENTENNIAL STATE. 477 The first comers there were generally in little squads, old friends and neighbors, and each party amicably divided all the gulch between them. But ihe next year came sixty thousand more, who wanted a show; and it is highly creditable to the pioneers that rules were agreed upon with so little trouble. The example was set in Gregory Gulch ( Central City). A mass meeting of miners was held June 8, 1859, and a committee appointed to draft a code of laws. This committee laid out boundaries for the district, and their civil code, after some discussion and amendment, was unanimously adopted in mass meeting, July 16, 1859. The example was rapidly followed in other districts, and the whole Territory was soon divided between a score of local sovereignties. But these were only laws as to property ; there was so little crime the first year that none others were needed. The Miners' Courts, as they were called, were presided over by justices of the peace, chosen by ballot ; these, as a matter of form, usually took out a commission, sometimes from the " Territory of Jefferson," sometimes from Arapahoe County, and often from both. But now money began to be plenty, and criminals invaded the country. The civil courts promptly assumed criminal jurisdiction, and the year 1860 opened with four governments in full blast. The miners' courts, people's courts, and " provisional government " ( a new name for " Jeiferson,") divided jurisdiction in the mountains; while Kansas and the provisional government ran concurrent in Denver and the valley. Such as felt friendly to either jurisdiction patronized it with their business. Appeals were taken from one to the other, papers certified up or down and over, and recognized/ criminals delivered and judgments accepted from one court by another, with a happy informality which it is pleasant to read of. And here we are confronted by an awkward fact : there was undoubt-edly much less crime in the two years this arrangement lasted than in the two which followed the territorial organization and regular gov-ernment. The miners and ranchers were, as a rule, sober and indus-trious, and few atrocious cases were brought before the people's courts. In Denver three homicides and two duels had occurred down to April, 1860 ; but soon after came an invasion of thieves and ruffians, and the conflict there was terrible for a time. If any of that class ventured into the mountains, the miners made short work of them. The miners' laws were usually drafted by com-mittees and adopted in full mass meeting, the government being a pure democracy. Each law began with " Resolved," though it was sometimes changed, as a matter of form, to " Be it enacted." Lawyers |
