374 KESOFRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



patch the offender while their blood is still hot. These scenes 

 have been comparatively rare of late, but they happen at least 

 several times in the course of a year. In the year 1855, no 

 less than forty-seven men were executed by mobs in Califor- 

 nia, twenty-four for theft, nineteen for murder, one for arson, 

 one for rape, and two Indians, for being spies to watch the 

 movements of some white men who were making war on their 

 tribe in Northern California. In nearly every instance when 

 a man is executed by mob law in California, he gets his deserts. 

 There may be exceptions, of course, but all the probabilities 

 are against the victim. Though the mob are excited, they are 

 by no means unreasonable ; they frequently give a man a for- 

 mal trial, hear the testimony against him, and do not execute 

 him until a jury has rendered a verdict against him. Some- 

 times the execution is hasty, but in such cases either the crime 

 is great and indubitable or there is danger that the offender 

 will be rescued by the officers of the law. The method of 

 procedure at a lynching is simple. The people collect about 

 the place where the prisoner is kept ; if he is in jail and the 

 jailor refuses to give him up, they break the door open with 

 crowbars, and take the prisoner out to a tree. If they have 

 leisure, a jury is organized and put under oath or promise to 

 give the accused a fair trial. Some one, no matter whether a 

 lawyer or not, is appointed to examine the witnesses for the 

 prosecution, and another for the defence ; and after a brief 

 hearing of the testimony a verdict is rendered, and in nineteen 

 cases out of twenty, the accused must swing. Hanging is 

 always used as the mode of execution. The main excuse for 

 these lynchings is, that the law is so badly administered that 

 there is no security that a criminal will be punished ; but as the 

 population becomes more permanent, there is less foundation 

 for this plea, and the lynch executions become less frequent. 

 They are confined altogether to the remote places in the state, 

 and in a few years they will entirely cease. 



§ 263. Squatter Jjeague. — There is now, and has for years 

 been, a squatter league secret society, with hundreds of mem- 



