A Prairie Town.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 16, 2 March 1870, Page 7

A Prairie Town.

It consists of four or five streets with brick or wooden buildings, though the favourite material for the construction of the stores is frame and canvas mixed. D linking and gambling saloons and brothels compose the majority of the houses. The embryo city, however, boasts of a really good railway hotel, just opened, and a bauk. Of church or chapel I saw no signs. The population is at present a floating one, containing some of the vilest scum of the earth—murderers, thieves, and loose women. The two former classes have lately been a good deal .thinned by the exertions of that secret tribunal known and dreaded as the Vigilantes or Vigilance Committee. I was told that most of the respectable storekeepers were members of this society, which exercises the functions of judge, jury, and executioner on all such murderers cr horse-tliieves—the latter of whose crime is considered much worse than that of the former—as they can catch. The sentence is carried out at night, and the very morning of our arrival at Laramie the bodies of six horse-thieves were found hanging to the timbers of a frame house in course of construction in the town, and four more dangled from the telegraph poles along the railroad ; while underneath was posted a notice, signed "The Vigilance Committee," to the effect that, unless Bill Smith or Joe Brown (naming some suspected thieves) cleared out of Laramie at once, they would be served in the same manner. This lynch law is a stern necessity in these western towns, where those whose duties it is to carry out the behests of justice are often ! such unprincipled scoundrels that they can be bribed for a few dollars to let oft the worst criminals. I was told by the officers stationed at Fort Steele of a case which occurred at Benton, a mile from that fort. A well-known bully shot a man in a drink-ing-house just for sport. When brought up before the district judge, though he openly boasted of having frequently committed similar acts, he was admitted to bail of a few dollars, and of course disappeared as soon as released. I heard of another case, in which the bully fortunately got considerably the woi'St of it. A gentleman was sitting by the stove in the public room of the hotel at Laramie, when a bully swaggered in, and spat on his boot. The gentleman remonstrated, whereupon the fellow spat in his face, and was immediately rewarded by being knocked down. Jumping up, foaming with rage, he attempted to stab the gentleman, but was prevented by the bystanders. It was then arranged that each should be armed with a bowie knife, and be put in a dark room upstairs, there to fight it out. This arrangement was carried out ; and after waiting some time, a heavy fall was heard. On opening the door, the bully was discovered dead on the floor, while the conqueror had only a wound through the arm.

The Melbourne Age of a late date has the following brief but melancholy history of a ruined life :—•" Another unfortunate. A raggedly dressed woman of twenty-six, once strikingly handsome, but now in an advanced state of consumption and palsied with drink, although so young, came before the city magistrate yesterday as a disorderly character, and was sent to the hospital for medical treatment. She gave no other name th?n Agnes Jessie, but her history is well known. She came to the colony a few years ago as a governess, and was qualified with every accomplishment for such a position. Her fate was that of so many others, and she became I the mistress of a wealthy profligate, who cast her off penniless. Step by step she sank almost to the lowest depth."