grow out of man's nature." But in this event the stains and blemishes
were effaced by a common atrocity.

Sitting at the back of my store on Clay street a beautiful Sunday
morning, one of those mornings peculiar to San Francisco, with its balmy
breezes and Italian skies, there seemed an unusual stillness, such a
quiet as precedes the cyclone in tropical climes, only broken
occasionally by silvery peals of the church bells. When suddenly I heard
the plank street resound with the tramp of a multitude. No voice or
other sound was heard but the tramp of soldiery, whose rhythm of sound
and motion is ever a proclamation that thrills by its intensity, whether
conquest or conservation be its mission. I hastened to the door and was
appalled at the sight. In marching column, six or eight abreast, five
thousand men carrying arms with head erect, a resolute determination
born of conviction depicted in linament of feature and expression.

Hastily improvised barracks in large storehouses east of Montgomery
street, fortified by hundreds of gunny sacks filled with sand,
designated "Fort Gunney," was the quarters for committee and soldiers.
The committee immediately dispatched deputies to arrest and bring to the
Fort the leaders of this cabal of misgovernment. The effort to do so
gave striking evidence of the cowardice of assassins. Men whose very
name had inspired terror, and whose appearance in the corridors of
hotels or barrooms hushed into silence the free or merry expression of
their patrons, now fled and hid away "like damned ghosts at the smell of
day" from the popular uprising of the people. The event which
precipitated the movement--the last and crowning act of this
oligarchy--was the shooting of James King, of William, a banker and
publisher of a paper dedicated to the exposure and denunciation of this
ring of dishonest officials and assassins. It was done in broad daylight
on Montgomery Street, the main thoroughfare of the city. Mr. King, of
William County, Maryland, was a terse writer, a gentleman highly
esteemed for integrity and devotion to the best interests of his adopted
State. Many of the gang who had time and opportunity hid on steamers
and sailing vessels to facilitate escape, but quite a number were
arrested and taken to Fort Gunny for trial. One or two of the most
prominent took refuge in the jail--a strong and well-appointed brick
building--where, under the protection of their own hirelings in fancied
security