-and it existed, therefore, for years, as scarcely more than a nominal organization.

In 1856, however, crime had again become so rampant and stalked abroad with such impunity, that the vigilance committee once more took justice into its own hands, with an iron and uncompromising sway, though this time not without a fearful struggle with the constituted authorities.

The great exciting provocation to the resumption of the committee's work, at this period, was the deliberate and coldblooded murder of James King of William (an appellation which he carried with him from Virginia), editor of the Evening Bulletin, by James P. Casey, editor of the Sunday Times, both of San Francisco. Mr. King was one of the earliest emigrants to California, and was a man universally respected and admired for his probity and independence. He began the publication of the Bulletin with the avowed purpose of denouncing the political and moral corruption which had gained for San Francisco such an unenviable reputation. The manliness and courage with which he pursued this work of reform gained for him the friendship of right-minded people of every class, and, as a matter of course, the enmity of the dishonest and criminal. Casey, the murderer, was, both in private character and habits and in his connection with municipal politics, a man of the class to whom Mr. King was most likely to be obnoxious.

On the fourteenth of May, Mr. King, in a rejoinder to an attack made upon him in the Times, stated that the editor of that journal, Casey, had been an inmate of Sing Sing prison, and had secured his election to an office in San Francisco by fraud. Casey called on King for satisfaction, failing to obtain which, he at once watched for him on the street, and, at five o'clock on the evening of the same day, the two met in public. With hardly a word of warning-giving his victim no time for defense,-Casey drew a revolver, and shot Mr. King through the left breast. The latter lingered for a few days and died on the 20th.

The murder was followed by the arrest of Casey, and he was conveyed to jail amidst intense popular excitement, his immediate execution being demanded by the infuriated multitude. A party of men, numbering several hundred, got together, armed themselves, put several small cannon on drays, and were on the point of starting to attack the jail, but finally desisted. It soon became evident that nothing could be done without an organization, now deemed imperative. A horde of murderers and other notoriously bad men had collected in the city, and had long gone unpunished and unterrified. The next morning, therefore, the members of the old vigilance committee met, and began to admit new members. For three days they sat in almost constant session secretly. About twenty-five hundred members, old and new, were admitted, these binding themselves to obey a committee of fifty, who alone knew what was to be done.

On the following Sunday morning, the committee were ordered to assemble, and be armed with a musket and revolver each. They were divided off into companies, and officers appointed. A six-pounder cannon was provided, and at ten o'clock they marched to the jail, which they surrounded. The cannon was loaded, and every musket was loaded with ball and had a fixed bayonet. At one o'clock, Casey, at his own request,-desirous, as he said, to prevent bloodshed,-was surrendered to the committee, who conducted him in a carriage to their chambers. Subsequently they took Charles Cora, the murderer of General Richardson, United States marshal, unconvicted on account of the jury disagreeing, and lodged him in one of their rooms. All this took place amidst the most perfect silence and order; the forces of the committee marched to the jail without bugle or drum, and hardly a word was spoken, even by the thousands of spectators who witnessed the scene.

The funeral of Mr. King was marked by every manifestation of popular respect for the deceased. Stores were closed, houses were hung with black, men wore crape on

their arms, bells were tolled, and flags were displayed at half-mast. Meanwhile, Casey and Cora's crimes had been adjudged worthy of death, and, notwithstanding the great gathering at the funeral, the rooms of the committee were surrounded by about twenty thousand people, who had got an intimation that the committee, fearing a rescue, had determined to hang the criminals forthwith.

A most formidable guard was arranged by the committee, numbering about three thousand stand of muskets and two fieldpieces. The streets in the immediate vicinity of the rooms were cleared by the soldiers, and the bristling bayonets that were displayed in every direction made the scene one of great solemnity.

At about one o'clock, the workmen were seen preparing the gallows in front of the committee rooms,-now located in a twostory granite building,-a platform being extended from each of two front windows of the second floor, extending about three feet beyond the line of the building, and provided with a hinge at the outer line of the window sill, the extreme end being held up by means of a cord attached to a beam, which projected from the roof of the building, and to which the fatal rope was also attached.

Soon the prisoners were brought to the windows, in view of the multitude, dressed in their usual garments, and mounted the platform, having their arms pinioned. They both appeared to be firm, and but little affected by the dreadful fate that awaited them. Before placing the rope upon their necks, an opportunity was given

them to speak to the people assembled. Casey made a few remarks, but Cora did not speak. At twenty minutes past one o'clock, everything being ready, the signal was given, the cord that held up the outer end of the scaffolds or platforms was cut upon the roof of the building, and the doomed men were both launched into eternity.

The work of death being ended, the body of armed men who had acted as guards, were all drawn up in line, and reviewed by the superior officers; after which, they countermarched down to the rooms, and, entering one door, stacked their arms, filed out at another door, and mingled with the citizens.

Extending its operations throughout the state, the committee determined to effect a complete renovation of society,—to break up and drive from the state the bands of felons with which it was infested, and to awe into submission the political bullies who so largely controlled the elections. After executing some four criminals, and transporting or banishing many more, thus securing comparative quiet and order, the committee relinquished its administration of justice; the same was the case in Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, and other places, where crime, unawed and unpunished by courts, had been thus summarily and sternly dealt with by an outraged community. The committee on no occasion denied the illegality of their acts; they defended their course solely on the ground that there was no security for life or property either under the regulations of society, as then existing, or under the laws as then administered.

How happily it was reserved for the United States to take this honor to herself, in a manner, too, undreamed of by any compeer or rival, will appear from the following history of the great fact, as given at the time by the press of both England and America. Indeed, in respect to the English journals and the English public, it can truly be said, that fair play and manly acknowledgment of a fair beat were never more honorably exhibited. And this last-named fact is all the more creditable, when all the circumstances of the case are considered. A large portion of the British peerage and gentry left their residences and forsook their usual diversions, to witness the struggle between the yachtsmen of England, hitherto unmatched and unchallenged, and the Americans who had crossed the Atlantic to meet them. All the feelings of that vast population swarming in British ports and firmly believing in "Rule Britannia," as an article of national faith; all the prejudices of the nobility and wealthy aristocracy, who regarded the beautiful vessels in which they cruised about the channel and visited the shores of the Mediterranean every summer as the perfection of naval architecture, were roused to the highest degree; and even the Queen of England did not deem the occasion unworthy of her pres

ence.

Until the very day, August twentysecond, 1851, of this celebrated contest, not Englishman ever dreamed that any nation could produce a yacht with the least pretensions to match the efforts of White, Camper, Ratsey, and other eminent builders; and in the pages of the Yacht List for that very year (1851), there was an assertion which every man within sight of sea water from the Clyde to the Solent would swear to, namely, that "yacht building was an art in which England was unrivaled, and that she was distinguished pre-eminently and alone for the perfection of science in handling them." Of the sev

united kingdom, not one of them had ever seen a foreigner enter the lists in the annual matches. It was just known that there was an imperial yacht club in St. Petersburg, maintained, it was affirmed, by the imperial treasury, to encourage a nautical spirit among the nobility, and that a few owners of yachts at Rotterdam had enrolled themselves as a club; but, till the America came over, the few who were aware of the fact that there was a flourishing club in New York did not regard it as of the slightest consequence, or as at all likely to interfere with their monopoly of the glory of the manliest of all sports. The few trial runs made by the America, on her arrival in English waters, proved her to be of great speed, and satisfied the English critics that her owners were not so little justified as at first they had been thought, in offering to back an untried vessel against any other yacht for the large sum of fifty thousand dollars, or for a cup or piece of plate. An interesting reminiscence or two, in this connection, related by Colonel Hamilton, a member of the club, may here be given, namely:

There had previously been some talk among the members of the New York yacht club, of a race with the yachts of England, and Mr. W. H. Brown, the wellknown and skillful ship-builder, had undertaken to build a schooner that should outsail any other vessel at home or abroad, and he agreed to make the purchase of her contingent upon her success. His offer was accepted by the yacht club. And now, to the master hand and brain of that accomplished architect, GEORGE STEERS, was confided the task of furnishing the model of this-to be-nautical wonder. The America was built. Failing, however, in repeated trials, to beat Commodore Stevens's yacht Maria, the club were not bound to purchase. But the liberality of the original offer was so great, in assuming all risk, and the vessel in fact proved herself so fast, that several gentlemen, the commodore at the head, determined to buy

her and send her out. She was accordingly purchased, and sent to Havre, there to await the arrival of the members of the club, who were to sail her, they following in a steamer.

Everything being made ready and completed at Havre, they sailed thence to Cowes, a seaport of the Isle of Wight-the scene of the contemplated regatta. Their arrival was greeted with every hospitality and courtesy, not only by the noblemen and gentlemen of the royal yacht club, but by the officers of government. Lord Palmerston issued an order that the America should be admitted in all the English ports on the footing of English yachts; the custom-houses were all made free to her; and the admiral of the station at

GEORGE STEERS.

Portsmouth offered every assistance and civility. The Earl of Wilton, and the veteran Marquis of Anglesea, the latter eighty years of age, were among the first visitors on board.

When the time for the regatta came, which was to take place on the most dangerous course possible for a stranger-in the waters of the Isle of Wight, with their currents and eddies, familiar only to those accustomed to the water-great solicitude was naturally felt by the Americans, as to the pilot to be employed. Warnings of all sorts, from various quarters, reached them, not to rely too much on any pilot that might offer; and the commodore was naturally perplexed. But here again the English admiral, with an intuitive perception of the difficulty-of which no men

tion, nevertheless, had ever been made to him-told Commodore Stevens that he would furnish him with a pilot for whom he himself would be answerable. The offer was as frankly accepted as it was honorably made. The pilot came on board, and never, for a moment, was there a suspicion on any mind that he was not thoroughly honest and reliable. Yet, so strong was the distrust among Americans outside, that even after the pilot was in charge, the commodore was warned, by letter, not to trust too much to him, and urged to take another pilot to overlook him. But the commodore's own loyalty of character would not entertain such a proposition-he gave his confidence to the pilot the admiral sent him, and it was completely justified.

The London Times said that never, in the history of man, did Cowes present such an appearance as on the eventful day appointed for this race. Upwards of one hundred yachts lay at anchor in the roads; the beach was crowded; and the esplanade. in front of the club swarmed with ladies and gentlemen, and with the people inland, who came over in shoals, with wives, sons, and daughters, for the day. Booths were erected all along the quay, and the roadstead was alive with boats, while from sea and shore arose an incessant buzz of voices mingled with the splashing of oars, the flapping of sails, and the hissing of steam, from the excursion vessels preparing to accompany the race. Flags floated from the beautiful villas which stud the wooded coast, and ensign and bargee, rich with the colors of the various clubs or the devices of the yachts, flickered gayly out in the soft morning air. The windows of the houses which commanded the harbor were filled from the parlor to the attic, and the "old salts" on the beach gazed moodily on the low black hull of "the Yankee," and spoke doubtfully of the chances of her competitors. Some thought "the Volante" might prove a teaser if the wind was light; others speculated on "the Alarm" doing mischief, if there was wind enough to bring out the qualities of that