hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

210 CRIMINAL AND JUDICIAL,
post there, but whom the Indians had killed. The
number of votes polled at both places was 109, but
from this population the requisite officials were chosen,
a certain major being elected county judge. Next
day most of the electors and elected returned to
Mariposa. Shortly after he qualified as judge, the
major killed Savage in a quarrel, 20 and under circumstances
which caused people to regard the death of
the Indian agent as the result of a conspiracy to vacate
his position. The major had only organized the court
of sessions, and his own arrest was the first in Tulare
county. He was permitted to go free, but public
sentiment being much against him, he left the country,
and Thomas Baker was appointed in his place.
But the wrong-doing was not by any means all on
the side of the courts. In Napa, in 1851, J. A. Sellers,
justice of the peace, nonsuited a certain person
for being absent. Meeting the justice in a public
place, the other endeavored to provoke a quarrel, which
the justice equally endeavored to avoid, but finally, being
irritated, said that if he really wished to fight, he
would send a negro to fight him, whereupon he was
stabbed in the breast, and died in a few minutes. 21
The legislature passed an act within a week providing
for a special term of district court in Solano county
to try the murderer of Sellers, but he escaped punishment.
In 1850 a Sacramento judge was publicly
whipped by a man whom he had not long before sentenced.
There were none to interfere, and the judge
resigned his office. Such examples were not encouraging
to the administration of justice. Judge Wilson
of the Sacramento court of sessions, in 1852, was assaulted
on leaving the court-room by two men, one
of whom was a prominent lawyer of that place,
»CaL Courier, Sept. 10, 1851; 8. F AUa, March 14, 1856. Savage waa
the 3d man of the expedition who was killed before the year was out
Barton, Hist. Tulare, 3.
41 Sac. Transcript, March 14, 1851; Hartnctl, Convention, MS., pt 18, 1-4.
Another man attempted to kill Judge McCabe, but was pardoned. S. F.
AUa, March 17, 1855.