The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 4, 1906, Page 7

the story of it, t the graphic de- tion of it, direct the man who together across the sand s splendid city. selling pioneers 1l the gos- nity across now t \g men there are but a few The eye-witnesses are growing T as the drooping Pioneers’ bujld- to day, and there- of each eye-witness s re of the events s 12 well worth ne most fm particularly mory he Call, and as ut the editors and re- on the stafl, would a smoke or a light WS, 80 always first important of 1856 was e completing of the Atla. ad been a volunteer fire- h the other young fellows I belonged to the Veteran pany. Early in the year, ddle of February, the Veteran were having & celebration—a pa- all that sort of thing, and on the news came of the leting of the Atlantic ca- cours¢ there was great interest nd great excitement with every- dy talking about it I d my #tore decorated for our Vet- emen’s celebration, and as soon ws about the cable came my friends in The Call upstairs e know, and I turned my share of celebration into & celebration for the ble, too asked one of the editors to write me something sbout the cable, and he did. te a couple of verses and I lettered em on cardbosrd and cut out the letters ut them in the window. “Here are the verses. In all these years [ have never forgotten them. This is how hey ran: God bless the ocean telegraph That saves two nations war, And slso sends me men To purchase my cigar. en sald that Morse's ware And mine would in smoke expire, ut-now his wires and my cigars Are living both by fire. & when Billy and I were our rolls and coffee with a tragic alr pen letter in her hand. the exclaimed. Eleanor er is coming to New York nt, end s she eim- because she’'s always the ‘shores of bo- ten to this!” she f what?” nothing bo! a Billy. “I'm ian about it,” wailed Betty. “But esn’t see it that way. She's le who ‘do things,’ and never met any, so she at she x come to dinner some quite informally) and be one of us, nks that because Kate writes and 1 artist and we all live in a little rtment—that we are ¢ queer and unconven- “Who is this Eleanor Cuyler?” “She’s a Philadelp! girl Ka and 1 met when we were in the mountains last e was awfully nice to us in y ways, and now it's our turn to do something for her. It's no use sug- gesting the matinee or a luncheon. Bleanor’s rich as Croesu d tired of all that. And there's nothing else we can afford. Oh, I don’t see what we're going to do.” BILLY'S F “¥¥ell, vou should have seen how mtich atfention my way of celebrating the lay- ing of the cable attracted. This corner one of the buslest corners in the ¢ty Every one seemed to pass it at ie or other in the day, and every the verses; and most of the peo- while, until something else came up. for “The two murders that led tc the form- ing of the Vigilance Committee of 1856 spened within a stone’s throw of n A. Richardson, the United Marshal for the District of Cali- was shot by the gambler Charles ora in a doorway at Clay and Leides- ff streets. james King of William, the founder of the Bulletin, was shot by James P. Casey n Montgomery street, near Washington. id not see this happen, byt 1 joined e crowd almest immediately after and w everything else that happened as It of It.” strange and tragic things they were that happened upon those open streets where now we walk by day on business intent, or by night on pleasure bent to the Latin quarter restaurants! First of all came the provocation—the cowardly murder of Marshal Richardson by Gambler Cora. They had been drinking together in the Blue Wing Baloon on Montgomery street, near Clay—mark the spot the next time you walk that way. They walked out to- gether to Clay and Leidesdorff streets, on which the stock gamblers lost and won their thousands. Suddenly they stepped from the sidewalk into the doorway of Fox & O’Connor's wholesale liquor store, which was closed for the day—this being between € and 7 o’clock in the evening of Saturday, November 19, 1856—and the gam- bler catching the peace officer around the neck pressed his revolver against his breast and fired. The Marshal fell, The ga-.bler was locked in jail, as much for his own safety as anything, apd an ugly murmuring of protest rumbled through the city. The murmur grew ominously loud and savage when Gambler Cora, with a ’de- fenise fund of $40,000 behind him, raised by the gambling element and the abandoned woman, Belle Cora, who chose to wear his name, appeared for trial. There was insult to decency in his very appearance in court, jaunty in a fancy “Do,” eried Billy. “Why, it's as plain s day! Satisfy her craving for the un- conventionall If we're not bohemians, we can at least put up a good imitation of the real thing. We can ask the English- man, Harry Rockminster—he’ll add & continental flavor. And there's Perry Dashwood, he can sing stein songs better than any one I.ever knew. We'll get Cynthia to come and recite and Worth- ington to bring his violin. They can pre- tend they're professionals. Cynthia will be an actress just starting on her career, and Worthington a struggling musician —‘struggling’ is the right touch, isn't it? And—let’s gee—this is Monday. Write and invite Miss Cuyler for Wednesday even- ing. Bohemians aren't supposed to give much notice when they ask people to their parties.”” And Billy looked over at me and laughed. He's the dearest brother in the world, and always comes to the rescue when Betty and I are hopelessly cast down. While Betty was jubilantly writing her note I went to explain things to Aunt Pattle. Aunt Pattle has mothered e children, aad us ever since we Wi nothing we do ever surprises her, so she fell in with our plan at once. “But I couldn’t be a bohemian if I tried” she declared. *“I wouldn’t know how to act and I'd make you all miserable and myself, too, You can easily ex- cuse my absence.” “But you'll miss-all the fun,” I ob- jected. Aunt Pattie's eyes twinkled. “Oh, I | TRRING THE VIGIZRWIE OFTH. velvet waistcoat, light kid %loves, and his drooping black gambler's mustache curled and perfumed. It was the flaunt- ing of the flash gambler that completed the offense against decency, and James King of Willlam, who had started his little paper to protest against this very element, made the most of it—and brought sbout his own death. Almost the fate of the city hung upon the conviction or acquittal of Gambler Cora, and decency made common cause against his friends as well as himself. Among these was James P. Casey, Su- pervisor and ex-convict. On May 14, 1856, while Cora was still in jail, James King of Willlam attacked Casey in his paper. As soon as the paper with the article came out, Casey came bullying into the office of James King of Willlam, who ordered him out. He went, But when James King of Willlam put on his talma and holding it together over his breast with his hands started for home, Casey was lying in wait for him. z p Unsuspectingly James King of Willlam walked out of Merchant street—you - can follow in his steps to-day—into Montgom- ery street and slong Montgomery street as far as the Montgomery block. There Casey rushed upon him, muttering some- thing about ‘‘defend yourself” and shot him in the breast. He fell upon the B i i AREWELL T mean to be there!” she cried. “Since we have no maid I'm going to serve the dinner myself.” In vain we all protested, coaxed, commanded. ‘Aunt Pattle was firm in insisting that as Miss Cuyler had never seen her it could make no possible dif- ference. All Wednesday Betty and I worked Hke majors. We had always rather prided ourselves on the artistic ar- rangement of our little parlor. Now, in order to make it look bohemian, we had banked it with all the bizarre and startling things we could lay our hands on, Bllly’s delicate water color sketches were jostled by flamboyant posters, theatrical photographs adorned the mantel and sundry pipes and ash trays littered the table. It certainly looked queer, but as Betty and I confessed to ourselves, we didn't. Betty was de- mure in a gray gown, and 1 wore my black net. I was just fastening one of Harry Rockminster's roses in my halr when the bell rang. “There she is!" cried Betty hysteric- ally. “Now don't act as if anything unusual were happening!" Eleanor Cuyler was enthusiastic in her greeting, and she was still telling of her joy in seeing us .whén w2 crogsed the threshold of the parior. At sight of the room ghe smothered a little gasp, which showed that our work had not been in vain. Then Billy came forward, and the loose blouse and soft tie which he wore for the occa- CISCO. SUNDAY. sidewalk, his blood making a stain be- fore this same Montgomery block; the crowd gathered and lifting up King of ‘Willlam carried him Into the Pacific Ex- press office, and Casey ran away to give himself up and get the protection of the jall agalnst the tumult he had raised. “Then,” says Mr. Wasserman, I joined the Vigllantes. There were no Vigilantes before. That had died out. But this was too much, and they were formed again. There were the tWwo parties—the Law and Order party, made up of the gamblers and toughs, and the Vigilantes. You had to belong to one or the other, and I be- came a Vigilante -and took the oath. slon made him lodk as - if he had stepped stralght out of the Latin quarter. But Mlss Cuyler wasn't any more surprised at his appearance than he wi at hers. Somehow neither Betty nor I had told him what a beauty Miss Cuyler = was—a childish little beauty with a fluff of golden hair, and deep’ blue eyes that opened!very wide when anything astonished &er.- Perry Dashwood and Harry Rockmin- ster came early, but there wasn’t a sign of Cynthia and Worthi. “They're halt an hour late ' already,” said Betty to me in an aside. ‘“What on earth can be keeping them?: I'm afraid the'dinner will be spofled.” Something of our uneasiness reached Billy, and he turned abruptly to e “I really think we'd better not t for the others,” he said. - “They may be quite late. happen on the shores of bohemia.” But we were hardly seated before we heard the turn of Worthington's latch Key, and the swish of Cynthia's skirt down the hall. She made a dramatic pause at the dining-room door, and looked perfectly dazzling in a erimson Spanish costume, glittering with spangles. “] hope you won't mind my coming in costume,” she sald. “We were kept late at rehearsal, and there wasn't time to change. I met Worthington on the stairs,” she continued - nonchalantly. “IHe'll be in in a moment. He's a mu- sician, Miss Cuyler, and you know. what uncertain hours they are forced to keep ) BOHEMIA’S SHO —especially when they are You never can tell what may. CAEE. . May 18, I was sitting at my breakfast at a French restaurant out by the Mission Dolores—a restaurant run il ‘#Hverything was peaceful and quiet, sand lots to join them. just Hke a Sunday morning ought to be, “Everything was done to ar- ‘When all of a sudden I heard a bell ring. rangement. We were already divided into It was the bell of the Monumental engine- companies, and each company was given house over by the plaza. It was the sig- a place. We surrounded the Broadway nal agreed upon for calling the Vigilantes Jall, where Cora and Casey were. Our leaders went up and demanded the pris- ’ BSOSO and The kitchen door creaked, swung open, and the expression on Billy’s face sig- naled me than something had hap- pened. “Aunty,” he burst out, and then checked himself. From behind me came a soft volce with the pleasant blurred accent of the South. “I reckon you's 'sprised to ses me, Marsr Billy. You didn't know I to cook de dinner, did you?” I turned and beheld Aunt Pattie! And yet not Aunt Pattie! For the face that beamed from -beneath a bandana turban was as black as the ace of spades! To Miss Cuyler this apparition was nothing more than a loquaclous, dusky servant, but the rest of us were in ec- stacies of mirth. We have vowad ever since that weé owed the whole success on them to such an extent as that. of the evening to Aunt Pattie, for not Cuyler was delighted. She looked only was the dinner deliciously cooked at them, and listened to them in open=* and splendidly served, but it went with eyed wonder as if they were beings from ; whir], - another world. And all my fears of what wpen dinner was over and she lean- Harry Rockminster would think were set oq pack in her chair with a little at rest when he fll.!pefld. “I say, isn't gigh, “It's just as I fancled bohemia this a stunning lark!” would be,” she declared. “Oh, what fun And now, i Aunt Pattie didn't act too u all must have gathering round the much like a lady, our bohemian dinner table this way every evening. Of would be a complete success. But one course, it's just a common occurrence false note would ruin everything. I to you, but I shall never forget It toyed with the grape fruit as long as Never! And I can't thank you enough ufihl@ Then I rang the bell. As I for this glimpse of it.” so I kept my eyes/ fixed on Billy.” Billy said she thanked him fervent- young ‘wore a pecullar, shabby carried his violin under crowning glory was 1 should say his wig, B g K 2 3 g § lated Harry Rockminster. not once did a trilumphant gleam the eyes of Signor Worthing- this day I've always wondered he managed to Keep that dreamy abstracted expression. Of course I knew 1 could count on Cynthia and Worth- ington, but I never knew I could count 'He sat opposite the kitchen door, and ly again when she saw ler to her car- Wwould ba the first to see Aunt Pattie. riage. “I've had the time of my lite,” oners. They had a ram to break down the dgor, if necessary. When they got in Casey was armed with a knife. The two men, Casey and Cora, were taken out by us down to the Vigilante headquar- ters at Sacramento and Drumm streets. There they were tried and sentenced. and out of the second-story window they were hanged. “No one could get near our headquar- ters unless permitted. We had guards, and barricades of sacks of sand. “On" the day eof the hanging the streets were packed with thousands of people, just as they are now at Market and Kearny and Third streets when there {3 a fight and people want to read the bulletins. “Out of the second-story windows board piatforms were run. There were hinges in them at about the mid- dle of their length and the outer ends were held up by ropes. Above, at the top of the windows were the hooks for the hanging ropes. “Casey was walked out of ene win- dow on one platform; Cora out of the other. Before Cora was walked out he was married to Belle Cora, the abandoned woman who had provided most of the money to get him acquitted and who had tried so hard to save him. “With each man was a priest. Casey talked to the crowd and asked not to be called a murderer, saying he had done only what he had been taught to @oiin resenting an injury. “Cora kissed the erucifix the priest held to bis Mps. The black caps were drawn over their heads, the nooses put - on and the boards dropped from under them. Then there they were left jang- ing for an hour, while the crowds came to look on. It seemed as If all San Frauncisco came to see them. “The Vigilantes held other trials and sentenced other men after that, but this seems.to have been the deciding point between the bad clement and those who wanted order, and the Vigil- antes won. “Many times I have heard it said, “You were a Vigilante, and we'll get you for that!” but I never was afraid. “In fitty years,” and Mr. Wasserman nods his head In emphasis, “a man can do many things. “I have been a rich man and a poor man in that time. I was in the Civil War, in the Seventy-first New York Regiment. I was In Alaska from 1869 to 1872 and I didn’'t know until I came out that there was a war between France and Germany,” and Germany is Mr. Wasserman’s Vaderland. “J was at Panama ‘n 18380 as store- keeper for the Panama Canal Company under the great Ferdinand de Lesseps. I lived there for two years and eight months and I saw happen there very much the sort of thing that is happen~ ing now. “] saw such stealing going on as I sever would have belleved possible if had not seen it with my own eyes. i’hnlever they say about affairs down here now it wouldn't be possible for such stealing to be carried on as there was then. “I think I am the only man who got away from there an honest man—who never was accused of stealing. “1 was there when the yellow fever was worse than it could possibly be under the present conditions. Men would get sick and die in a night. T saw twelve men die in my house in one night, and that was enough for me. Then 1 came away. “I was made chief storekeeper for the Panama Canal Company there, and it was Ferdinand de Lesseps himself who appointed me. “It happened this way: I was assist- ant storekeeper and the first year that I was down there, when the Fourth of July came around I went to the chief of the company the night before and told him: “ “Po-morrow I don’t work. To-mor- row I make a holiday.” “‘How is this” he given no permission.’ “I told him that the next day was the Fourth of July and I was an American citizen—that I made a holiday of that day. “‘But I can't give you permission. If I give you permission then all the others will want it and we can’t have that.” «<All right,” T said, ‘if you don't give me permission I will take it anyhow,’ and I did. “T got through sending out the stores very early in the morning and then I went over to the American Club. First I ran out & big American flag from my house. At the club I got out a big box of fireworks that I'd got from one of the Chinese, and began to set them off, asked, ‘T have “Then when the men came from their - work to eat—to dejeuner—I invited them, French officers and all, to come and drink with me because it was Fourth ofi July. Wae opened some bottles of wine, we set off the fireworks, and they did not go back to work again that day. We got carriages, the Governor gave us the band, we went to the American Consul's house and had- speeches, and so we had our Fourth of July celebration in fine style. “It made a hit, and the French de- cided to have their celebration on the 14th—the fall of the Bastile. They raised a lot of money, and were going to have grand electric displays, but the current was too weak and it was a flzzle. “Then the preparations were to be made to welcome De Lesseps on his ar- rival. “I had had some experience in decor- ating, and I asked permission to do the decorating for this event. The chief en- gineer was glad enough to get the trou- ble off his hands; and I was so success- ful in pleasing De Lesseps that when the welcome was over he asked who did the thing is to be healthy. I am T years old, and I have my health, so I have much to be thankful for.™ she reiterated. “The time of my life™ “Well, she wasn't the only ome,” sald Worthington. He had taken off his wig and was mopping his brow while the rest of us sat about the dining- room table nibbling at the remains of Jessert, and teasing Aunt Pattie to have something more substantial than lobster salad and a cup of coffea. “Miss Cuyler did seem to appreciate it,” said Cynthia. “Appreciate!” cried Billy. “T think it's we who ought to appreciate her ‘Why, just to look at her is a i She has the kind of eyes I want for my ‘Queen Titania.'" “Why don’t you ask her to pose for it, then?” suggested Cynthia siyly. “I have,” answered Billy quite sim- ply, “and we are going to begin to-mor- row." “Whift!" sniffed Betty. “I smell orange blossoms!” And under cover of the laughter Harry turned to me. “Miss Cuyler's had the time of her life. 'Billy’s had the time of his, and there's just thing wanting to give me the time of mine.” His lips were smiling, but there was no mistaking the look in her eyes. “I'd hate to spoil your evening by saying ‘no,'"” I whispered back. And then, although I was so happy, I had an absurd desire to ery, and if Billy hadn’t suddenly interrup® with & toast to the shores of bohemia, good- ness knows what might ha 4 Whtianend) (Copyright, 1906, by K. A.