ano, in 1854, they hanged a man named Macy for stabbing an old and
helpless man. In this instance vengeance was very swift, for the
murderer was executed within half an hour after his deed. The haste
caused certain criticism when, in the same month one Johnson was hanged
for stabbing a man named Montgomery, at Iowa Hill, who later recovered.
At Los Angeles three men were sentenced to death by the local court, but
the Supreme Court issued a stay for two of them, Brown and Lee. The
people asserted that all must die together, and the mayor of the city
was of the same mind. The third man, Alvitre, was hanged legally on
January 12, 1855. On that day the mayor resigned his office to join the
Vigilantes. Brown was taken out of jail and hanged in spite of the
decision of the Supreme Court. The people were out-running the law. That
same month they hanged another murderer for killing the treasurer of
Tuolumne county. In the following month they hanged three more cattle
thieves in Contra Costa county, and followed this by hanging a horse
thief in Oakland. A larger affair threatened in the following summer,
when thirty-six Mexicans were arrested for killing a party of Americans.
For a time it was proposed to hang all thirty-six, but sober counsel
prevailed and only three were hanged; this after formal jury trial.
Unknown bandits waylaid and killed Isaac B. Wall and T. S. Williamson of
Monterey, and, that same month U. S. Marshal William H. Richardson was
shot by Charles Cora in the streets of San Francisco. The people
grumbled. There was no certainty that justice would ever reach these
offenders. The reputation of the state was ruined, not by the acts of
the Vigilantes, but by those of unscrupulous and unprincipled men in
office and upon the bench. The government was run by gamblers, ruffians,
and thugs. The good men of the state began to prepare for a general
movement of purification and the installation of an actual law. The
great Vigilante movement of 1856 was the result.

The immediate cause of this last organization was the murder of James
King, editor of the _Bulletin_, by James P. Casey. Casey, after shooting
King, was hurried off to jail by his own friends, and there was
protected by a display of military force. King lingered for six days
after he was shot, and the state of public opinion was ominous. Cora,
who had killed Marshal Richardson, had never been punished, and there
seemed no likelihood that Casey would be. The loc