the only penalties optional with them. Death
they could not inflict, because Hopkins had recovered; and banishment
they thought impractical at that time, as it might prolong discussion
indefinitely, and enforce a longer term in service than the Committee
cared for. It was the earnest wish of all to disband at the first moment
that they considered their state and city fit to take care of
themselves, and the sacredness of the ballot-box again insured. To
assure this latter fact, they had arrayed themselves against the federal
government, as certainly they had against the state government.

The Committee now hanged two more murderers--Hetherington and Brace--the
former a gambler from St. Louis, the latter a youth of New York
parentage, twenty-one years of age, but hardened enough to curse
volubly upon the scaffold. By the middle of August, 1856, they had no
more prisoners in charge, and were ready to turn the city over to its
own system of government. Their report, published in the following fall,
showed they had hanged four men and banished many others, besides
frightening out of the country a large criminal population that did not
tarry for arrest and trial.

If opinion was divided to some extent in San Francisco, where those
stirring deeds occurred, the sentiment of the outlying communities of
California was almost a unit in favor of the Vigilantes, and their
action received the sincere flattery of imitation, as half a score of
criminals learned to their sorrow on impromptu scaffolds. There was no
large general organization in any other community, however. After a time
some of the banished men came back, and many damage suits were argued
later in the courts; but small satisfaction came to those claimants, and
few men who knew of the deeds of the "Committee of Vigilance" ever cared
to discuss them. Indeed it was practically certain that any man who ever
served on a Western vigilance committee finished his life with sealed
lips. Had he ventured to talk of what he knew he would have met
contempt or something harsher.

A political capital was made out of the situation in San Francisco. The
"Committee of Vigilance" felt that it had now concluded its work and was
ready to go back to civil life. On August 18, 1856, the Committee
marched openly in review through the streets of the city, five thousand
one hundred and thirty-seven men in line, with three companies of
artillery, eighteen cannon, a company of dragoons, and a med