Popular Tribunals Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIX. COUNTRY COMMITTEES OF VIGILANCE. Here is a mine of truth, which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our coal. George Eliot. Let Us now examine some of the more dignified popular tribunals outside of San Francisco. It was almost simultaneously, as soon as people began to understand something of the nature of the organization of June 9, 1851, that similar associations were formed throughout the length and breadth of the land. The Vigilance Committee of Sacramento was first formally created the 25th of June, about a fortnight after the organization of the first Vigilance Committee in San Francisco. Two hundred and thirteen members were enrolled at the first meeting, which was held at the Orleans Hotel, and thereafter the number rapidly increased. P. B. Cornwall was chosen president, and the executive committee consisted of Messrs Milne, Duryee, Rightmire, Watson, Latson, Chesley, Barker, Meeks, Leake, and Geiger. Prior to this time, as we have seen, there had been several summary arrests and punishments of greater or less degree. But this was hardly sufficient, in view of the rapid development of events. When the best men of Sacramento saw what San Francisco was doing, saw the immediate good effects of their unique association, they obtained a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the San Francisco Committee and organized on the same plan. In common with the entire country, the City of the Plains was infected with the leprosy of crime; and as this landing was then the rendezvous for adventurers from San Francisco and elsewhere to the northern mines, rascality here partook at once of the character of that of the city and of the country. Thither resorted commercial, agricultural, and mining desperadoes;...