Vigilance Committee.

Billy Mulligan.

William Mulligan was shipped out of the State on the steamer "Golden
Age" on June 5th, 1856, with instructions never to return under penalty
of death. However, after three or four years of absence he returned to
San Francisco. He was often seen on the street, but was not molested
until sometime in the summer of 1862 when he got a crowd of boys around
him on the crossing of Prospect Place and Clay street, between Powell
and Mason streets. It was not long before he had trouble with them and
shot into the crowd, injuring a boy, however, not seriously. The police
were soon on the ground, but Mulligan had made his way into the old St.
Francis Hotel on the corner of Clay and Dupont streets which was vacant
at that time. The police came and they were directed to the building
where Billy could be found. When the police entered they found they were
half a story below the floor of a very large room in the second story.
Billy was called upon to surrender. He told them that the first one that
put his head above the floor would be a dead man, and knowing the
desperate character they were dealing with, they thought best to retire
and get instruction from the City Attorney, who told them they had a
right to take him dead or alive, whereupon they proceeded to arm
themselves with rifles and stationed themselves on the second floor of a
building on the opposite side of the street from the St. Francis on
Dupont street, and when Mulligan was passing one of the windows the
police fired. Mulligan dropped to the floor, dead as a door nail. He was
turned over to the Coroner and has not been seen on the streets since.
Charles P. Duane is another one of twenty-seven men who were shipped out
of the State and returned. He shot a man named Ross on Merchant street,
near Kearny. I do not remember whether the man lived or died, or what
became of Duane.

Black List.

From the book entitled "San Francisco Vigilance Committee of '56," by F.
W. Smith, I quote the following, with some corrections and alterations:

"I am informed by an ex-Vigilante that the Committee roll call of '56,
just before its disbandment, numbered between eight and nine thousand.

In concluding our history of this society, we will give the names and
penalties inflicted on those who came under its eye during the latter
year; whose conduct was so irreparably bad that it could not be excused.

Those who suffered the death penalty di