rowd.

"Make it fifty lashes!" shouted another.

A wrangle at once started between the advocates of cropping and the
whip. The crowd wearied of it.

"Let the ---- ---- ---- go!" suggested someone.

And this motion was carried with acclamation. No evidence was offered or
asked as to the extent of the man's guilt, or indeed if he was guilty at
all!

The meeting had a grim sense of humour, and enjoyed nothing more than
really elaborate foolery. Such as, for example, the celebrated case of
Pio Chino's bronco.

Pio Chino was a _cargador_ running a train of pack-mules into some
back-country camp. His bell mare was an ancient white animal with long
shaggy hair, ewe neck, bulging joints, a placid wall eye, the full
complement of ribs, and an extraordinarily long Roman nose ending in a
pendulous lip. Yet fifteen besotted mules thought her beautiful, and
followed her slavishly, in which fact lay her only value. Now somebody,
probably for a joke, "lifted" this ancient wreck from poor Chino on the
ground that it had never been Chino's property anyway. Chino, with
childlike faith in the dignity of institutions, brought the matter
before the weekly court.

That body took charge with immense satisfaction. It appointed lawyers
for the prosecution and the defence.

Prosecution started to submit Chino's claim.

Defence immediately objected on the ground that Chino, being a person of
colour, was not qualified to testify against a white man.

This point was wrangled over with great relish for an hour or more. Then
two solemn individuals were introduced as experts to decide whether
Chino was a man of colour, or, as the prosecution passionately
maintained, a noble, great-minded and patriotic California member of the
Caucasian race.

"Gentlemen," the court addressed this pair, "is there any infallible
method by which your science is able to distinguish between a nigger and
a white man?"

"There is," answered one of the "experts."

"What?"

"The back teeth of a white man have small roots reaching straight down,"
expounded the "expert" solemnly, "while those of a negro have roots
branching in every direction."

"And how do you expect to determine this case?"

"By extracting one or more of the party's back teeth," announced the
"expert" gravely, at the same time producing a huge pair of horseshoeing
nippers.

Chino uttered a howl, but was violently restrained from bolting. He was
understood to say that he didn't want that