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The Case of Summerfield by W. H. (William Henry) Rhodes
page 5 of 39 (12%)
month of October last. We have now to record another bold outrage on
public justice, in connection with the same affair. The grand jury of
Placer County has just adjourned, without finding any bill against the
person named above. Not only did they refuse to find a true bill, or to
make any presentment, but they went one step further toward the
exoneration of the offender; they specially ignored the indictment which
our district attorney deemed it his duty to present. The main facts in
relation to the arrest and subsequent discharge of Parker may be summed
up in few words:

It appears that, about the last of October, one Gregory Summerfield, an
old man nearly seventy years of age, in company with Parker, took
passage for Chicago, via the Pacific Railroad, and about the middle of
the afternoon reached the neighborhood of Cape Horn, in this county.
Nothing of any special importance seems to have attracted the attention
of any of the passengers toward these persons until a few moments before
passing the dangerous curve in the track, overlooking the North Fork of
the American River, at the place called Cape Horn. As our readers are
aware, the road at this point skirts a precipice, with rocky
perpendicular sides, extending to the bed of the stream, nearly
seventeen hundred feet below. Before passing the curve, Parker was heard
to comment upon the sublimity of the scenery they were approaching, and
finally requested the old man to leave the car and stand upon the open
platform, in order to obtain a better view of the tremendous chasm and
the mountains just beyond. The two men left the car, and a moment
afterward a cry of horror was heard by all the passengers, and the old
man was observed to fall at least one thousand feet upon the crags
below. The train was stopped for a few moments, but, fearful of a
collision if any considerable length of time should be lost in an
unavailing search for the mangled remains, it soon moved on again, and
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