TRIALS AND CONVICTIONS.

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ignore participation in or sanction of the murders. The people of Butte county were indignant when they learned that the arch-conspirators had been so quickly liberated, and good men everywhere were dissappointed. But this is the old, old story. Instead of canonization, our courts need renovating, revolutionizing, remodeling. They are a disgrace to civilization. We want twice the efficiency, twice the detection, conviction, and punishment of crime for one-half the money it now costs

On the 7th of April those indicted for arson alone were arraigned. Among these was the stableman H. C. Wright, the coolest and most reckless of them all "Have you a lawyer?" asked Judge Safford of him.

"No sir.'

"Do you want one?"

"No sir."

"Are you guilty or not guilty?" then asked the clerk.

"Guilty," said Wright.

Adam Holderbaum pleaded guilty to arson in the second degree. Five were convicted of arson in the second degree and sentenced, one to twenty years, two to ten, and one to five years in the state prison. The 18th of April H. T. Jones was brought into court and convicted of arson in the first degree.

While this trial was in progress a barn was fired by the incendiaries and burned to the ground. Charles Slaughter then pleaded guilty to arson in the second degree. Next John Mahoney was tried for arson, and John Slaughter attempted to assist him by false swearing. Thomas Stainbrook's case was called for trial the 23d of May, and was followed by those of Charles and John Slaughter, E. R. Roberts, and E. Conway. Stainbrook was sentenced to twenty-seven and a half years' imprisonment, and the others to twenty-five years each.

Perhaps we should be satisfied with an aggregate

of little less than two centuries of servitude for the killing of three Asiatics, and the burning of a few buildings. The presence of too many low Mongolians in our midst is not conductive to the highest civilization; and yet these Chinese were men; they were coolly and wilfully murdered; the assassination was as foul and deliberate and unprovoked as any to be found in the annals of crime; the law makes such killing punishable by death; and yet these murderers were not so punished.

About this time M. Atherton was tried at San José for the murder of Edgar May at Santa Cruz, while the latter was in a state of helpless intoxication, and the murderer likewise drunk. Atherton was sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment. Now these sentences, all of them, done into English, simply say that the killing of Chinamen, and killing done by drunken men is not murder. It is difficult to understand why courts and juries any more than vigilance committees have the right to break the law, or to subvert its just operation.

During these proceedings a Citizen's Safety Committee had been organized at Chico, of which Mr Theil was appointed treasurer. Hung upon the shutter of Mr Thiel's store on Second street the night of April 8th was found the following missive written on a half sheet of dirty note paper. It is hardly up to the standard of average communications of this sort, though it caused much uneasiness, particularly among owners of grain-fields.

"The devil dreeme on the Chinese question. There are three or four men in this city has been making dam fools of themselves in regard to the damed Chinese that will get anufe of it before the first of August. You must remember it seldom rains here after the first of June, and when everything is dry a match will burn without sacks of straw or karseen either, and we will also give the farmers of this country notice to look out this season for everi grain. Every

FOLLY OF SUCH ACTIONS.

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mans ranch reaped or stacked by the Chinaman is liable to tak fire from the Heat of the sack or the spark from the smoke sack. It looks bad to do such work but if our state oficers done do something in pertection of the poore we will half to carry it out ourselves and it will be in a ruff manner to from T. O. MUGINS.

"To the Public."

The instruments of the Chico outrages were less fanatics than fools. Individually they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by becoming the blind tools of those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by warring on a non-voting class. The antagonism of the stableman and the butcher's clerk to Chinese laborers was inspired neither by race antipathy, fanatical hatred, nor industrial interest. Vulgar brutality seems to have been the primary instinct prompting them, and next to this petty plunder. Believing themselves safe from punishment by reason of their secret associations, flattered by those who set them on, they flung forward the bridle rein of their evil natures, and let their low tastes lead them whither they would. Secret societies organized for the accomplishment of a pretended public good, and then lending themselves to the commission of crime, cannot be too severely denounced by every lover of honest law and open liberty.

CHAPTER XXI.

COURTS OF JUSTICE AND COURT SCENES.

Conrad.-Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.

Dogberry-Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

-Much Ado About Nothing.

1st Clown.-Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

2d Clown.

But is this law?

1st Clown.-Ay, marry is't; crowner's quest law.

-Hamlet.

COURTS of justice in California were, in early times, equal if not superior to those of any new country or border settlement founded since the days of Justinian-equal if not superior in ability, stupidity, or what you will. Anything that courts of justice could do any where or under any circumstances, good or bad, ours could achieve. Yet I may safely say that the judges, on the whole, were honest men; and while frequently neither educated in law nor specially fitted for the position, they were far above the average magistrates in general intelligence and practical judgment. On the supreme bench and presiding over the district and county courts, particularly in the cities and more thickly populated parts, have been from the first occupation of the territory by citizens of the United States until the present day, as able and erudite jurists, men of as broad and enlightened intellects, as might be found elsewhere in Europe or

CHARACTER OF THE JUDICIARY.

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America. Some were dissipated, but for the most part they were men of integrity. Even during the most lawless times there were sitting on the judicial bench of California men whose purity of life and character was never questioned. And to-day a corrupt judge is the exception, not the rule. With pride I point to our judiciary, and to the better class of attorneys who practice in our courts. True, a judge may be bribed sometimes, not knowing it; or he may be swayed by public opinion, not knowing it; he may be feasted by bonanza men, or given a free ride across the continent by the wholesale corruptionists of the railroads, and so warp his decision in their favor-not knowing it. Unfortunately as much cannot truthfully be said of our legislators and political officeholders who, during the usually short term of their occupancy, seek rather to serve themselves than the public. These are never bribed without knowing it, as they always require pay in advance.

During the flush times, the days of which I write, we find some dolts and some wilfully wicked men seated even on our higher judicial benches. Through the absence of strict social restraint arose laxity in moral observances and legal formulas. Among the people, vigor of mind broke out into numerous eccentricities; or, rather, the preöccupied citizen, acting naturally and independently, not thinking wholly of himself, his dress, and manner, claiming for himself the utmost freedom, eating, sleeping, walking, speaking as best pleased him, threw aside some of the eccentricities of fashion, and in so doing to the unenfranchised appeared eccentric. Leaving the marts of business for church worship, the same eccentricity of thought, or lack of it, is manifest, though in form devotion was not greatly changed. In such a society it is but natural that from tribunals of justice, as well as from its ministers, some part of that severe decorum which characterizes more staid and superstitious communities should be removed.