Committees of Vigilance were formed elsewhere than in the city of San Francisco, however. Many places in California during the early history of the State had similar committees, though outside of San Francisco they were usually organized only temporarily to deal with particular cases. Similar “Popular Tribunals” existed in Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado during the early period of their settlement. Bancroft says at the close of his first volume on Popular Tribunals: “I have given in this volume many examples of Popular Tribunals, but the half has not been told. It is safe to say that thus far in the history of these Pacific States far more has been done toward righting wrongs and administering justice outside the pale of law than within it.” Further evidence of the prevalence of lynch-law during the colonization of the territory west of the Mississippi River is furnished by an editorial in the New York Times of March 19, 1864, written under the title “Judge Lynch.” The opening sentences are as follows: “Our fellow-citizens in the far West, in the mineral territories bordering upon the Rocky Mountains, and in those on the other side of the mountains, are holding Lynch courts in extraordinary number, and carrying out the decrees of that ferocious judge with unprecedented energy. Our latest files from the distant regions of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, &c., contain accounts of executions in numbers that we think were never equalled even in the early days of California settlement, nor in any part of the West.” Then follows a recital of various instances, twenty or more robbers and murderers hung in Idaho Territory, four murderers hung by a “Citizens Association” in the Territory of Nevada, &c. It is stated that on Thursday of that week bills were passed in Congress enabling Nevada and two other Territories to form constitutions preparatory to their admission to the Union as States. As a condition to their admission an irrevocable ordinance was provided prohibiting slavery, and the writer of the editorial remarks, “we think lynching might have been added.” Lynch-law prevailed to a large extent, also, during the border troubles attending the outbreak of the Civil War. Particularly was this the case in Kansas where, along with the guerrilla warfare that went on for a number of years, many instances of summary procedure occurred that may be properly classified under lynch-law. A correspondent of the New York Tribune in Lawrence, K. T., wrote on May 30, 1858: “There is a very general disposition to pass over the helplessly useless forms of Territorial law and corrupt Federal courts, and try these parties (_i.e._, horse-thieves) by Lynch law.”[194]