They heard that gamblers and
other notorious characters, his associates and friends, had raised large
sums; that able lawyers had been retained for his defense; and then that
his trial had ended in a disagreement of the Jury, soon to be followed,
as they believed, by a nolle prosequi, and the discharge of the red
handed murderer. They saw an Editor, for commenting on a homicide in the
interior of the State, committed by a man claiming to be respectable,
and followed by his acquittal in the face of what appeared to be the
clearest evidence of his guilt; assaulted by the criminal in a public
street in San Francisco, knocked down from behind by a blow on the head
from a loaded cane, and beaten into insensibility, and, as seemed, to
death; while three of the assailant's friends stood by, with cocked
revolvers, threatening to slay anyone who should interfere. Again they
saw the farce of trial resulting, as every one knew it would, in
acquittal. At length, so confirmed and strengthened were villains by the
certainty of escape from punishment, that they did not even trouble
themselves to become assured of the identity of their victims.
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