From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   Bill Shatzer wrote:   
      
      
   > With 45 homicides, three convictions, and no legal hangings, it does   
   > seem that frontier justice was a bit less draconian than the pulp   
   > novels and hollywood movies would have us believe - ignoring the two   
   > lynchings of course.   
      
   Won't speak to the entire frontier, but in Texas there were reasonably   
   clear distinctions among classes of homicide. Roughly, a situation that   
   got out of hand in which someone was killed, with no real desire for a   
   fatal outcome, was deemed a regrettable event. Such an event as someone   
   rashly announcing their intent to kill another and the two happening to   
   meet, or persistence abuse that led to homicide was commonly termed "a   
   killing." "Killing" also included the necessity of dealing definitively   
   with a frank threat to the community. Homicide in the course of robbery,   
   assassination from hiding without necessity or from plain meanness was   
   considered "murder." A modicum of fairness was often required to keep it   
   out fo the criminal arena. Provoking the difficulty and forcing a man   
   otherwise not inclined to violence could make a lesser encounter be   
   considered murder.   
      
   In the first two situations, the survivor was not considered criminally   
   culpable. Typical of a "killing" was the event (in Lampasas?) in which a   
   ranch boss in town doing business was accosted by a drunken cowboy from   
   South Texas who insisted on having the man go drink with him. They   
   separated without violence, but the ranchman ran into him again in a   
   saloon where the cowboy, even more drunk, settled at the bar next to him   
   and elbowed him hard in the ribs. The ranchman pulled his knife and cut   
   the visitor's throat. It was not considered criminal, although the   
   survivor felt obliged to publicly apologize for using a knife. He   
   explained he was forced to employ such low means, on account of not   
   having brought a pistol to town.   
      
   With liquor in free flow and the propensity to go armed, it wouldn't be   
   surprising if most homicide fell into the "regretable" and "killing"   
   categories. It's an aspect that popular entertainment media generally   
   ascribes to totally lawless places of the sort Eastwood's nameless   
   characters seemed to frequent, while if killing was to go unpunished in   
   a piece set in a regular town, the script contrived other reasons.   
   Difficult to set up the understanding for the audience, I suppose.   
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)