We're most agen the border now, I reckon. Catch e'er a one of them passing; by, if I won't scalp him. There's one thing we'll do. We'll pass the word round the boat at the last landing, so as they can jest kinder have their choice which way they like. They must jest be good on the hemp or land. That's how we'll crowd it on 'em, or they'll have to allow to take the change out of this hyar revolver of mine. That's so; they must jest be right on the hemp or put ashore. We've stood them a mighty steep time, but they ain't agoin' to carry on that powerful any longer. That's a fact." The judicial functionary repeated many times his plan, whereby to separate the wheat from the chaff among the passengers; but, fortunately, when we reached the boundary-line, the excitement was too great to admit of its execution. Most probably the whole of it was mere bravado.

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CHAPTER XI.

Two great Divisions.-Pro-slavery Men and Free-soilers.Subdivisions.-Slaves.-Small Number of Slave-owners in Kansas.-Their Works.-" Border-ruffians."-King of the Fire-eaters.-Their Numbers.-Volunteer Companies.-An American "Groggery."-A Border-ruffian's Boast.-A fair "Border-ruffian."-The Free-state Party.-General Lane.-Governor Robinson.-His Services.-Enormities of Naples and Austria reproduced in America.-Relative Numbers in Kansas of Southerns and Northerns.-Migration.-Permanent Settlers.-Floating Population.-Western Cities.Contrast between Free and Slave Towns.

THE two great divisions in the population of Kansas are, of course, the Pro-slavery men and the Free-soilers. These are the two rival armies which, having poured during the past two years into the territory, form the bulk of its inhabitants, and now stand side by side contending for the mastery of power in the future State. These parties are susceptible also of a sub-division, according as their purposes in entering the territory are peaceable or warlike. A most notable distinction is that which separates the man who, whatever be the policy he

I

has espoused, seeks to carry the day by his right of suffrage as a permanent honest settler, and the lover of disturbance who comes to assert victory at the expense of falsehood, treachery, robbery, and bloodshed. Judge O'Trigger, who had "got some boys up to Kansas," and who spared executing his threat against those who would not wear the Pro-slavery badge,—namely, a bunch of hemp, symbolic of a rope, stuck into the buttonhole-is, thus far, greatly more to be respected than the Northern man who in the pursuit of his cause should turn his Yankee acuteness to dishonest account:

There are therefore bona fide settlers among the Pro-slavery men. Judging by the number of slaves, which according to the census of 1855 was 192, and has not, probably, increased since that time, those who have brought their "live-stock” with them, in order to cultivate the soil, are not many. A single Southern planter will often own four or five times the whole number of slaves existing in Kansas. But in the Western States the ownership is generally limited. Supposing, therefore, the average of "hands" owned by one master in Kansas to be as small as four, which my own observation would lead me to think a sufficiently low estimate, we still

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have fewer than fifty as the total number of slaveowning settlers in Kansas. It is singular that for the sake of fifty men, to protect them in their "right" to hold property in slaves, so many other rights have been trampled under foot, and thousands of honest men interdicted in the peaceful possession of their lands and the legal exercise of their political suffrages. There are, as may be supposed, many besides, who, although not owning slaves, are yet rightful Pro-slavery settlers. Still, if we are to estimate their number by the evidences of their industry, and ask what cities have they built, what buildings have they erected, what lands have they brought under culture, what commerce have they introduced, where are their farm-houses in the country, and their stores, and warehouses, and schools, and churches in the towns, we should come to the conclusion, that if they are as numerous as they profess to be, their powers are so absorbed by their much talking that they are unable to exhibit any proportionate fruit of the labour of their hands.

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Of the Pro-slavery men who are not permanent settlers little need be said. These are the "border ruffians" who have figured so much and so ill in the short history of Kansas. Their acts sufficiently

indicate their character. Bold, reckless men, intent upon one object, and that the extermination of every Free-soiler from the territory, utterly unscrupulous as to the means by which their object shall be attained, they are to be seen and heard on every side-now standing in knots at the street corners, or in the bar-rooms, concocting their schemes of strife; now as marauding "posses," armed to the teeth, galloping across the country, ready to waylay and hang on the nearest tree any one they may meet who will not join their faction; again, in large numbers assembling in some "grocery," surrounded by whisky and rum barrels, or in the open air, addressed by some one of their leading men, some king of the Fire-eaters," who makes them swear to follow him till the last drop of Abolition blood is shed; or, led on in troops by such masters in infamy as Donaldson, Marshal of the United States, or Jones, the Sheriff of Douglas County, or David R. Atchison, who left his seat at Washington as President of the United States Senate, to engage in this unjust war; and under their generalship planting their cannon before the Free-state buildings in Lawrence, and reducing them to ashes, notwithstanding the unresisting surrender of the inhabitants.