A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856Webb, Stephen Palfrey
History
A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856
Webb, Stephen Palfrey
San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1856
So high-handed an offender against the law and the rights of the people
could not escape the notice or the withering rebuke of Mr. King. He
fearlessly proclaimed him a convicted felon, and dealt with him as one
of the principal of those offenders against all law, human or divine,
with whom San Francisco had been so long and so terribly cursed.
The Bulletin of May 14th, in which the charges founded upon the most
incontrovertible evidence, of Casey's conviction, sentence and discharge
from Sing Sing, was made in the plainest terms accompanied with comments
upon his ballot-box stuffings and other criminal acts in San Francisco,
was published at an early hour in the after noon. At four o'clock Casey
called at the Editor's room and demanded of Mr. King what he meant by
the article in the Bulletin just issued, and was asked to what article
he alluded? "To that" was the reply, "in which I am said to have been
formerly an inmate of Sing Sing State Prison." "Is it not true?" said
King. Casey replied, "That is not the question. I don't wish my past
acts raked up; on that point I am sensitive." King then pointed to the
door which was open, and told him to leave the room and never enter
there again. Casey moved to the door saying, "I'll say in my paper what
I please." To which King replied "You have a perfect right to do as you
please. I shall never notice your paper." Casey said, "If necessary, I
shall defend myself." King, rising from his seat, said, "Go, and never
show your face here again." Casey immediately retired.
At five o'clock, his usual dinner hour, Mr. King left his office. With
his arms crossed under his Taima, as was his wont, and his eyes cast
down, he passed along Montgomery Street apparently in deep thought, and
at the corner of Washington Street began to cross the street diagonally.
When about half across, Casey stepped from behind an Express wagon,
dropped a short cloak from his shoulders, and uttering a few words, the
only ones heard by Mr. King, as he said on his death bed, being "Come
on," immediately discharged one barrel of a large revolver into Mr.
King's breast. Mr. King drew himself up, and then made a slight motion
sideways, indicating plainly to the few persons in sight at the time,
that he was hit. The spectators immediately ran in towards him, and
assisted him into and seated him in the Express Office. He was badly
wounded in the left breast, and was apparently in a dying condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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