olished
such imprisonment, it is interesting to note that three hundred and
thirty-eight persons were committed to the Essex county jail in New
Jersey, for debt, in the year ending April 1, 1823, of whom one hundred
and forty-one were in close confinement. The aggregate of debt was
fifty-five thousand dollars.(375)

Within the state one of the phenomena which has characterized frontier
regions appeared about the year 1821. A desperate gang of immigrants had
robbed and plundered until, after a most notable robbery, "a public
meeting was held, and among other things, a company was formed, consisting
of ten law-abiding men of well-known courage, who bound themselves
together, under the name of the Regulators of the Valley, to rid the
country of horse thieves and robbers.... A regular constitution was drawn
up and subscribed to." After the leader of the desperadoes had been killed
the remainder fled.(376) A frontier condition is indicated also by the
fact that when Sangamon county was formed, on January 30, 1821, a special
law provided that housekeepers in the county should perform the duties and
receive the privileges of freeholders. The same provision was made for
Morgan county two years later. As land sales in the Sangamon country, in
which these counties lay, did not begin until November, 1823, these laws
probably resulted from the formation of counties whose entire population
consisted of squatters.(377) The persistence of wolf bounties bears
testimony to continued wild surroundings.(378) In 1829 alien Irish, and
presumably all other aliens, could vote at all elections. An election law
of this year provided that voting should be by the voter's approaching the
bar, in the election room, and naming in an audible voice the persons for
whom he voted, or, if the voter preferred, by delivering to the judges a
ballot which should be read aloud by them, the alternative being for the
benefit of illiterate voters. Voting had previously been by ballot.(379)

Although frontier conditions obtained, there were evidences of their
gradual amelioration. A law of 1823 provided that counterfeiting, which,
in the territorial period, had been punishable by death, should be
punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, whipping with
not fewer than one hundred nor more than two hundred lashes, imprisonment
for not more than twelve months, and being rendered forever infamous.(380)
The state established a system of common schools t