THERE is probably no portion of the history of San Francisco which has more excited the attention, the mingled wonder and applause, scorn and indignation of the civilized world, than the proceedings of the famous "Vigilance Committee." To lawloving, peaceable, worthy people in the Atlantic States and Europe, it did certainly seem surprising, that a city really of thirty thousand inhabitants,-though since the population was chiefly composed of male adults, of virtually the pretension, the riches, business and character of a city of twice that number,should patiently submit to the improvised law and arbitrary will of a secret society among themselves, however numerous, honest and respectable the members might be reputed. Few people, abroad, who had been trained from infancy to revere "the majesty of the law," and who had never seen any crime but what their own strong legal institutions and efficient police

could detect and punish, could possibly conceive such a state of things as would justify the formation and independent action of an association which set itself above all formal law, and which openly administered summary justice, or what they called justice, in armed opposition and defiance to the regularly constituted tribunals of the country. Therefore, in other lands, it happened that the Vigilance Committee became often a term of reproach, and people pointed to it as a sign that society in California was utterly and perhaps irredeemably impure and disorganized. In San Francisco itself, while some citizens, it must be confessed, did condemn the proceedings of that body, by far the greater number cordially approved of them. The public press was almost unanimous in its support of the association. The officers of the law were often obliged to take cognizance of the existence and actions of the committee, and thought it a matter of public duty to denounce them; but many of even these parties, in private conversation, and still more in heart, applauded the course which had been adopted by their fellow-citizens.

We have already had occasion to mention the affair of the "hounds" in 1849. The summary measures taken at that period by the people had the effect, for a while, of keeping the blackguards who had been long infesting the city within some moderate bounds. But the great immigration in the fall of that year, and the confusion in San Francisco which followed, naturally encouraged new depredations, which in the bustle of the time and place were unnoticed and unfelt by any but the actual victims. Over all California it was the same. The inroad of nearly a hundred thousand strangers, who were likewise strangers to each other, scattered among a dozen newly established towns, and over the various mining districts, and who themselves knew not the laws of the land, and perhaps expected, as they could find, no protection from them, but trusted only to their own. watchfulness and revolvers, produced a state of things which greatly favored the increase of crime. In 1850, a similar vast immigration took place. The legal institutions and executive, that just before had served the needs of a population of twenty or thirty thousand, now failed to secure safety to a quarter of a million, in which number were some of the most daring and

clever rascals in the world. Among the immigrants were many of the same stamp with the older criminals of the country, and who readily aided in the lawless exploits of the latter. When the towns, or any particular localities, became too hot to hold them, the mining regions, over a length of seven hundred miles, were ready to receive and shelter the fugitives. After a few months, under a new garb and name, the rascals would boldly return to their former haunts, and with impunity commit new crimes. Society was every where continually changing; while disguised in every imaginable way, by dress and an alias, and not least by the growth and trimming of the beard, it was almost impossible that the old offenders could be recognized. The natural migration of honest diggers from mine to mine, often far distant from each other, and to the greater towns to spend their gains or recruit their health, was so great, that no notice could be taken, by the really few permanent residents in any place, of the arrival and departure of strangers, or of those traits in their behavior which might have seemed strange and suspicious, if witnessed by idle, inquisitive people of long settled lands. While this constant immigration favored the freedom of criminals from arrest, it also helped to extend their acquaintance among kindred rogues. Wherever they went, they knew there were one, two, or half a dozen noted haunts for fellows like themselves, upon whose aid they could always rely, to execute new outrages, to swear an alibi, or give any kind of false testimony that might be wished; to fee counsel or offer straw-bail, or to plan an escape from pursuit or prison of themselves, or some hotly pressed associate in crime. Thus there was gradually formed a secret combination among the chief thieves, burglars and murderers of the country, minute ramifications of which extended down to the pettiest pilferers. To occasionally cut off a single member of this class would do little good, so long as the grand gang was at large and in full operation. Nothing less than the complete extirpation of the whole body of miscreants, with their numerous supporters and sympathizers, aids and abettors, would relieve society from the fearful incubus that now oppressed it.

America no doubt supplied a number of these plunderers, while the different countries of Europe likewise contributed a

proportion. But the most daring, and probably the most numerous class had come from Van Dieman's Land and New South Wales, whither England had sent shiploads of her convicted felons. The voyage from Sydney to San Francisco was neither a very tedious nor an expensive one; and great numbers of "ticket-of-leave" men and old convicts who had "served their time," early contrived to sail for California. There the field seemed so rich and safe for a resumption of their quondam pranks, that they yielded to the temptation, and forthwith began to execute villanies that in magnitude and violent character far exceeded those for which they had been originally convicted. Callous in conscience, they feared nothing save the gallows. But that they had little reason to dread in merciful, gentle, careless California, where prosecutors and witnesses were few, or too busy to attend to the calls of justice; where jurors, not knowing the law and eager to be at money-making again, were apt to take hasty charges from the bench as their sole rule of conduct; where judges, chosen by popular election, were either grossly ignorant of law, or too timid or careless, corrupt or incapable, to measure out the full punishment of crime; and where the laws themselves had not yet been methodically laid down, and the forms and procedure of legal tribunals digested into a plain, unerring system. These "Sydney coves" therefore were comparatively safe in their attacks on society. They lost not the opportunity; and, unchecked, during the fall of 1849, the whole of 1850, and the early part of 1851, reaped a large harvest.

There was a district of San Francisco that was noted as being the rendezvous of the numerous rascals we have been describing; and from which perhaps at this time emanated as much villainy as at any period the "Seven Dials" or the "Five Points" produced. This quarter lay around Clark's Point, in Broadway, Pacific street, and the immediate vicinity. It was the notorious Sydney-town of San Francisco. Low drinking and dancing houses, lodging and gambling houses of the same mean class, the constant scenes of lewdness, drunkenness and strife, abounded in the quarter mentioned. The daily and nightly occupants of these vile abodes had every one, more or less, been addicted to crime; and many of them were at all times ready, for the most

trifling consideration, to kill a man or fire a town. During the early hours of night, when the Alsatia was in revel, it was dangerous in the highest degree for a single person to venture within its bounds. Even the police hardly dared to enter there; and if they attempted to apprehend some known individuals, it was always in a numerous, strongly-armed company. Seldom, however, were arrests made. The lawless inhabitants of the place united to save their luckless brothers, and generally managed to drive the assailants away. When the different fires took place in San Francisco, bands of plunderers issued from this great haunt of dissipation, to help themselves to whatever money or valuables lay in their way, or which they could possibly secure. With these they retreated to their dens, and defied detection or apprehension. Many of these fires were believed to have been raised by incendiaries, solely for the opportunity which they afforded for plundering. Persons were repeatedly seen in the act of kindling loose inflammable materials in out-houses and secret places; while the subsequent confessions of convicted criminals left no doubt of the fact, that not only had frequent attempts been made to fire the city, but that some of these had unfortunately been successful. Fire, however, was only one means of attaining their ends. The most daring burglaries were committed, and houses and persons rifled of their valuables. Where resistance was made, the bowie-knife or the revolver settled matters, and left the robber unmolested. Midnight assaults, ending in murder, were common. And not only were these deeds perpetrated under the shade of night; but even in daylight, in the highways and byways of the country, in the streets of the town, in crowded bars, gambling saloons and lodging houses, crimes of an equally glaring character were of constant occurrence. People at that period generally carried during all hours, and wherever they happened to be, loaded firearms about their persons; but these weapons availed nothing against the sudden stroke of the "slung shot," the plunge and rip of the knife, or the secret aiming of the pistol. No decent man was in safety to walk the streets after dark; while at all hours, both of night and day, his property was jeopardized by incendiarism and burglary.

All this while, the law, whose supposed "majesty "is so awful