business. Hoping that he would become more
communicative, and tell me the adventures
of his life, I invited the Pharisee to partake
of my breakfast in my house. But he wished
me, in a dry manner, good-bye, under the
pretext that his companion was waiting for
him on a barren rock in the bay.

The will of God, as the Pharisee called it,
was fulfilled shortly afterwards. The same
week, when I returned one evening from my
hunting, I observed in the twilight a corpse
hanging on a tree. On examining it more
closely, I recognised the Pharisee, quite dead
and stiff. Beside the Pharisee, I found two
corpses more, the hands tied, and shot
through the forehead. I could not doubt that
regular executions were taking place; but
never did I ask, and never was I told who
were the judges or the executioners of the
supposed criminals.

The state of personal safety in the
neighbouring country was nearly the same as on
our peninsula. The same causes had worked
the same effects. Cattle-stealing was
shamelessly carried on, and similar committees for
hanging the thieves, either permanent or
convocated for the purpose, had sprung up
all around. Justice or injustice was dealt
out at once, and severely; not by means of
regularly established courts representing the
whole nation, but by small bodies of the
people. Sometimes, indeed, these bodies were
very small. For instance, on the twenty-seventh
of February there was a corpse
found on the high road from San Francisco to
the Pueblo San Jose, then the capital of the
state. It was shot through the breast, and
to the bottom button-hole of the jacket was
a long piece of paper fastened—much of the
same form as I had seen, when a boy, in my
mother's larder, tied to large bottles of
preserves, to indicate their contents. On this
piece of paper was to be read, in very legible
characters:

I shot him because he stole my mule.
John Andrew Anderson ,
Anderson Rancho, Santa Clara Valley.

I have altered the names, but the address
was quite as full as this. Certainly, John
Andrew Anderson was not a murderer; in
his opinion, he had only administered justice.
Since ten or twelve private men could do so,
why not one?

Thieves and criminals in general were in
California, as they probably are everywhere
else, the least disposed set of men to become
martyrs to their vocation, and retired for
safety from the country to the larger towns.
Popular justice, as it was called there, was in
the more numerous communities not so easily
administered as in the country; for the
simple reason that five men will agree more
readily than five hundred. And although
five men were perfectly sufficient to hang a
thief in a creek of the Chaster River, five
hundred would have been too small a number
to erect a gibbet on the Plazza of San Francisco
or Sacramento city. Consequently, while
men like the Irish Captain and John Andrew
Anderson were so awfully expeditious in
hanging and shooting the thieves, the
criminals in the towns had only to deal with the
cautious and mean-spirited magistrates.

Crimes in the towns increased rapidly. An
actor was shot even on the stage, when
performing his part I believe, of King Lear.
It was clear that some extraordinary measure
must be had recourse to, since Judge
Campbell, with his colleagues and subordinates,
proved now as utterly unable to protect the
townspeople, as they formerly had been
inadequate to protect the country population.
The same reasons which, a month before, the
Irish Captain had propounded on our
peninsula, were now debated in the newspapers
and streets of the town. And here, too, they
were not without effect. The population of
the towns began to set aside laws and
magistrates, and to administer a kind of justice of
their own, similar to that in tho country and
diggings.

The executions in Sacramento city became
soon very celebrated for the awful majesty of
their law. On the Grands Jours, all day
long, teams, horsemen, and pedestrians
poured into the town from every direction;
and thousands of miners and strangers
from the country came in to witness the
exciting scenes. In the evening the multitude,
the committee, and the culprits were
assembled on the Plazza round a large fire, the
sentence was solemnly read, and then the
criminals were hanged. The office of hangman
was reserved as a post of honour for the most
respectable citizen of the town in respect of
wealth and standing in society. But he paid
dearly for this honour. Two days after his
first performance he was shot.

While Sacramento city followed the
example of the other localities, San Francisco
alone held up the laws and established
authorities. San Francisco was not only the
most populous town, but a considerable part
of its inhabitants, as being wealthier than
the people elsewhere, were less inclined to
support any kind of revolutionary measures.
They preferred debates in the town-hall
and in the newspapers, to achievements
in the streets and public places. Not
that they were satisfied with their judges
and lawyers. The Alta California, their
acknowledged organ of the public press,
declared openly: " If ever any country were
cursed with that worst bane of society,
irresponsible, incompetent, and corrupt judges,
the community of California is the one so
afflicted." But the upper classes were even
more afraid of the excited multitudes than of
daring thieves and corrupt judges. Not so
the middle classes. The grocers, bakers,
and—for they had themselves become the
victims of thefts—the butchers, were fully
confident in their own strength, and