which suddenly rose to the most unbounded popularity, and which has had a wide sway, and exercised a great influence over the community. As stated by himself, the problem to be solved at the establishment of this paper was: "Would the San Francisco public sustain a truly independent journal-one that would support the cause of morality, virtue and honesty, whether in public service or private life, and which, regardless of all consequences, would fearlessly and undauntedly maintain its course against the political and social evils of the day?" The answer Yes! was soon and loudly made, and enthusiastically echoed from every town and mining camp in the country. The services rendered by James King of Wm., in the Bulletin, to the cause of political integrity, and public and private morals, will never be forgotten by the people of the State. He attacked the vicious and criminal wherever he found them. Corruption in high places met in him a relentless foe.

A notorious and professedly banking house, but which was virtually a political institution, that had long overridden the Constitution, and made and unmade—against the will of the people, and by the most disreputable meansnearly every officer of the city and State, was assailed by the Bulletin in regular form; and its corruption, its insolent and dangerous usurpation, and at the same time its inherent weakness, exposed. The wrongers and swindlers of the unfortunate creditors of Adams & Co. were pitilessly attacked and held up to the scorn and detestation of the people. The demoralizing system of bestowing Federal, State and city appointments chiefly on professional gamblers, duelists, rowdies and assassins-on the debauched, illiterate, idle, criminal, and most dangerous class of the mixed population of the country-was forcibly pointed out and indignantly condemned. A high standard of honesty was laid down for all public men. The law's cruel delay, the baseness and corruption of its ministers, the dishonorable professional conduct of leading pleaders in the courts, all were made plain to the honest and unsuspecting, and properly stigmatized. In short, the glaring evils of the body politic, the denial and

perversion of justice, and the unworthy personal character and incapability of the general class of men who held office, or who were connected with the courts of law, were loudly and unsparingly denounced. Mr. King did not waste his energies by uttering smooth, general homilies on evil doings; he struck directly at the evil-doer. If a man whose conduct required to be publicly exposed were really a swindler, a gambler or duelist, a common cheat, a corrupt judge or a political trickster, the Bulletin, standing alone in this respect among the timid, time-serving or bribed city press, dared so to style him. But not only did Mr. King, in his paper, expose scoundrelism, vice and crime, and smite their votaries wherever he detected them; he also endeavored, and not in vain, to aid in whatever could restore and strengthen the moral tone of society. He urged the decent observance of the Sabbath; he recalled public attention to the plainest and most necessary dictates of religion; he encouraged the establishment of public schools, and dwelt on the blessings of a sound and liberal education; he frowned on gambling, dueling, and willful idleness; he sought to soothe and reinspire the desponding who had the desire but lacked the opportunity, and especially the energy and perseverance, to earn a living by the sweat of their brow; he strove to free the city from the unblushing presence of the lewd who had so long assumed insolently to follow, if not often to lead, the virtuous and decent portion of the community. The political knave, the dishonest office-holder, the gambler, swindler, loafer and duelist, the base class of lawyers-in brief, the vicious, lewd and criminal of every kind, were in consternation; their unhallowed practice and gains were disappearing.

A conspiracy was formed: and the end of it all was the public assassination of this brave champion of the people's rights. The conspirators resolved and swore to secure impunity to the guilty doer. A base, illiterate man-a convicted felon, who had served a sentence of imprisonment in Sing Sing penitentiary, but who yet held a high municipal office in San Francisco, into which he had been stuffed by ballot-box fraud-was the wretched

tool of the secret murderers. The professed cause of the deed was that James King of Wm. had told the truth concerning him.

The circumstances attending the assassination, and the events which followed, will ever appear as fixing a grand epoch in the history of California, and from that day will date the regeneration of public virtue, if not also of private morals, in the State.

Mr. King was taken unawares, and deliberately shot down, about five o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 14th day of May, 1856, on the public thoroughfare, near the northwest corner of Montgomery and Washington streets. A ball, fired from a navy revolver, entered the left breast and passed through his body. After lingering in much pain, and for some time affording strong hopes of recovery, he gradually sank, and died of the wound shortly after one o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, the 20th of May.

His death was universally regarded (except by the miserable faction whom he had pursued) as a national calamity, and every honor that a grateful people could bestow was heaped on his memory. A public subscription, amounting to nearly $32,000, was raised throughout the city and State, and presented to his widow and family of six children. He was thirty-four years and a few months old when he died. His was a tall, well-proportioned, manly form. The keenness of his eyes, his handsome black beard, and the noble expression of his countenance—the index to his heroic character-were vividly remembered by all who saw him but only once. His body lies buried in the Lone Mountain Cemetery, mid-way between the city and the ocean.

On the afternoon of Thursday, the 22d day of May, the assassin, James P. Casey, was hanged before a vast multitude by the Vigilance Committee. At the same instant of time that a solemn dirge was being chanted over the dead body of the victim, previous to the funeral procession leaving the old Unitarian Church, on Stockton street, for the cemetery, the murderer was struggling with death. That day, May 22d, 1856-in which also news

reached San Francisco of a dreadful railway accident on the Isthmus of Panama-was one of manifold horrors to the citizens.

Among the numerous tributes offered to the memory of James King of Wm. were the following verses, written by W. H. Rhodes, Esq., (better known by the nom de plume, "Caxton,") which were appropriately set to music by Prof. Rodolph Herold.

"He Fell at His Post Doing Duty."

The patriot sleeps in the land of his choice,
In the robe of a martyr, all gory,

And heeds not the tones of the world-waking voice,
That cover his ashes with glory.

What recks he of riches? what cares he for fame,

Or a world decked in grandeur or beauty?

If the marble shall speak that records his proud name,
"He died at his post, doing duty!"

The pilot that stood at the helm of our bark,
Unmoved by the tempest's commotion,

Was swept from the deck in the storm and the dark,
And sank in the depths of the ocean.

But little he'll grieve for the life it has cost,
If our banner shall still float in beauty,
And emblaze on its folds, of the pilot we lost,
"He died at his post doing duty!"

The warrior-chieftain has sunk to his rest-
The sod of Lone Mountain his pillow;
For his bed, California has opened her breast;
His dirge, the Pacific's sad billow!

As long as the ocean-wave weeps on our shore,
And our valleys bloom out in their beauty,
So long will our country her hero deplore,
Who fell at his post doing duty!