denouncing villains and villainy in high or low station, and the
reformation of the numerous and aggravated abuses under which the
community was and had long been groaning. Day after day did he assail
with dauntless energy the open or secret robbers, oppressors or
corruptors of the people. Neither wealth nor power could bribe or
intimidate him. It would be difficult to conceive the enthusiasm with
which the People hailed the advent of so able a champion, and the
intense satisfaction with which they witnessed his steadfast
perseverance in the cause of truth and the right.

At length, on the fourteenth day of May 1856, the anxious fears and
gloomy forebodings of his family and friends were realized .... His
assassin, James P. Casey, was well-known and of evil repute in the City.
Bold, daring, and unscrupulous, his hand was ever ready to execute the
plans of villainy which his fertile brain had conceived. Sentenced in
New York to imprisonment for grand larceny in the State Prison at Sing
Sing for the term of two years, and discharged when that term had nearly
expired; he soon after sailed for California. Shortly after his arrival,
he was chosen Inspector of Elections in the Sixth Ward of San Francisco.
Here he presided over the ballot box, and was generally believed to have
accomplished more ballot box staffing, ticket shifting and false returns
than any other individual in the City or State. He made, as was
generally believed, his office a means of livelihood, and held the City
and County offices in his hands to be disposed of in such manner as
might best promote his interest or fill his pockets. Year after year by
this means he was accumulating money, until he was reputed to have made
a fortune, although never known by the people to have been engaged in
any honest industrial occupation in California. For the purpose perhaps
of adding the levy of blackmail to his other modes of accumulation, he
established a newspaper, called the Sunday Times, and without principle,