more than enough of them still loitering about the
Courts, civil and criminal. San Francisco is not the only city in the
United States in which defendants in grave criminal cases have recourse
to every conceivable and possible means, without scruple, to procure
their own acquittal, or the utmost modification of the penalty, by
proving extenuating circumstances, or that the indictment magnifies the
crimes. This was true of 1856; here, as elsewhere in the land; it is
equally true now. Had the merchants and solid citizens then drawn as
jurors, fulfilled their duty to the cause of justice, to the
conservation and maintenance of law and order, they would have had no
cause or pretence for the organization which they formed. The initial
fault was attributable to themselves; the jury-packing they complained
of was the direct consequence of their own neglect of that essential
duty to the State, in the preservation of law and order; and they cannot
reasonably or justly shift the onus from themselves upon the Courts.

Concerning the frauds in election: yes, there were frauds, outrageous
frauds, at every election; repeaters, bullies, ballot-box stuffing, and
false counts of the ballots to count out this candidate and count in the
one favored of the "boys." More than one member of the Vigilance
Executive Committee had thorough knowledge of all this, for the very
conclusive reason that more than one of them had engaged in these
frauds, had not only participated in them directly and indirectly, but
had actually proposed them; employed the persons who had committed the
frauds, and paid these tools round sums for the infamous service. The
reward of these employers and accessories before, during and after the
frauds, was the office that was coveted; and the "Hon." prefixed to
their names was as the gilt which the watch stuffer applies to the brass
thing he imposes upon the greenhorn as a solid gold watch. Out of the
Committee, of the Executive Committee, the detectives of that body might
have unearthed these honorable and virtuous purifiers and reformers;
with them, perhaps others whose frauds were no less wicked and criminal;
but in business transactions, and not in political affairs. One of the
Executive Committee had served his term of two years in the Ohio State
Prison for forgery; here in San Francisco he had, during two city
elections, been the trusted agent and disburser of a very heavy sack in
the honest endeavor to secure the nom