Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1892 — A TEXAN EXPERIENCE. [ARTICLE]

A TEXAN EXPERIENCE.

The Men Who Carry Revolvers—J (i Tenderfoot’s ’* Surprise. The ideas the stay-at-home Easter man obtains of the extreme borderland of Texas are gathered from various sources, says Richard Harding Davis, ip Harper’s Weekly. From others who, as will all travellers, make as much of what they have seen as is possible, this much being generally to show the differences which exist between the places they have visited and their own home. Of the similarities they say nothing. Or he hive read of the bandits and outlaws of the Garza revolution, and he has seen the Wild West show of the Hon. William F. Cody. The latter, no doubt, surprised and delighted him very much. A mild West show, which would be equally accurate, would surprise him even more; at least, if it was organized in the wildest part of Texas between Ban Antonio and Corpus Christi. When he leaves this first city and touches at the border of Mexico, at Laredo, and starts forth again across the prairie of cactus and chaparrol towards " Corpus," he feels assured that at last he is done with parlor cars and civilization; that he is about to see the picturesque and lawless side of the Texan existence, and that he has taken his life in his hands. He will be the more readily convinced of this when the young man with the broad shoulders and sun-browned face and wide sombrero in the seat in front raises the cur window, and begins shooting splinters out of the passing telegraph poles with the melancholy and listless air of one who is performing a casual divertisement. But he will be better informed when the Chicago drummer has rised hurriedly, with a pale face, and has reported what is going on to the conductor, and hears that dignitary say, complacently: “ Shoo 1 that’s only 1 Will ’ Scheeley practisin’! He’s a dop'ty sheriff." .He will learn in'lime that the only men on tfie borders of Texas who are allowed to wear revolvers are sheriffs, State agents in charge of prisoners, an" the Texas Rangers,' and that whenever he sees a man so armed he may us surely depend that he is one of these as he may know that in New York thpse in gray uniform, with leather bags over their shoulders, are letter-carriers. The revolver is the Texan officer's budge of office; it corresponds to the Now York policeman’s shield; aud he toys with it just as the Broadway policeman juggles his club. Itis quite as harmless us a toy, and almost as terrible as a weapon. This will grieve the ‘'tenderfoot" who goes through the West “heeled,” and ready to show that though he is from the effete East, he is able to take care of himself.

It was first brought home to mo as I was returning from the border, where I had been with the troops who were hunting for Garza, and was waiting at a little station on the prairie to take the train for Corpus Christi. 1 wus then told politely by a gentleman who seemed of authority that If I did not takeoff that pistol, I would bo fined 126, or put in jail for twenty days. I explained to him where 1 had been, and that my baggage was at “Corpus,” and that I had no other place to carry it. At which he apologized, and directed a deputy sheriff, who was also going to Corpus Christi, to see that 1 wus not arrested for currying u deadly weapon. This, I think, illustrates u condition of things in darkest Texas which may give a new point of view to the Eastern mind. It is possibly something of a revolution to find that instead of every man protecting himself, and the selection of the fittest depending on who is “quickest on the trigger,” ho has to have an officer of the law to protect him if he tries to be a law unto himself.