half-past four to five o'clock
along Market Street from Fourth to Fifth Streets. The road is wide and
not so much frequented as those streets farther in town. If we are to be
shot or cut to pieces, for heaven's sake let it be done there. Others
will not be injured, and in case we fall our house is but a few hundred
yards beyond and the cemetery not much farther." Boldness such as this
did not act exactly as a soporific.

About this time was perpetrated a crime of violence no worse than many
hundreds which had preceded it, but occurring at a psychological time.
A gambler named Charles Cora shot and killed William Richardson, a
United States marshal. The shooting was cold-blooded and without danger
to the murderer, for at the time Richardson was unarmed. Cora was at
once hustled to jail, not so much for confinement as for safety against
a possible momentary public anger. Men had been shot on the street
before--many men, some of them as well known and as well liked as
Richardson--but not since public sentiment had been aroused and educated
as the _Bulletin_ had aroused and educated it. Crowds commenced at once
to gather. Some talk of lynching went about. Men made violent
street-corner speeches. The mobs finally surged to the jail, but were
firmly met by a strong armed guard and fell back. There was much
destructive and angry talk.

But to swing a mob into action there must be determined men at its head,
and this mob had no leader. Sam Brannan started to say something, but
was promptly arrested for inciting riot. Though the situation was
ticklish, the police seem to have handled it well, making only a passive
opposition and leaving the crowd to fritter its energies in purposeless
cursing, surging to and fro, and harmless threatenings. Nevertheless
this crowd persisted longer than most of them.

The next day the _Bulletin_ vigorously counseled dependence upon the
law, expressed confidence in the judges who were to try the case--Hager
and Norton--and voiced a personal belief that the day had passed when it
would ever be necessary to resort to arbitrary measures. It may hence be
seen how far from a contemplation of extra legal measures was King in
his public attitude. Nevertheless he added a paragraph of warning: "Hang
Billy Mulligan--that's the word. If Mr. Sheriff Scannell does not remove
Billy Mulligan from his present post as keeper of the County Jail and
Mulligan lets Cora escape, hang Billy Mulligan, and if necessary t