It needs no lawyer to understand that a magistrate violates the plain letter as well as the spirit of these provisions of law when he issues a warrant without first having before him some evidence of the probable, or at least the possible, guilt of the accused.  If this were otherwise, private malice could temporarily sit in judgment upon the object of its hatred, however blameless, and be rewarded for perjury by being allowed the use of our jails as places in which to satisfy its vengeance.  Such a view of the law made Sarah Althea the magistrate at Stockton on the 14th of August, and Justice Swain her obsequious amanuensis.  Such a view of the law would enable any convict who had just served a term in the penitentiary to treat himself to the luxury of dragging to jail the judge who sentenced him, and keeping him there without bail as long as the magistrate acting for him could be induced to delay the examination.

The arrest of Justice Field was an attempt to kidnap him for a foul purpose, and if the United States circuit judge had not released him he would have been the victim of as arbitrary and tyrannical treatment as is ever meted out in Russia to the most dangerous of nihilists, to punish him for having narrowly escaped assassination by no act or effort of his own.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HABEAS CORPUS PROCEEDINGS IN NEAGLE’S CASE.

This narrative would not be complete without a statement of the proceedings in the United States Circuit Court, and in the United States Supreme Court on appeal, in the habeas corpus proceedings in the case of Neagle, the deputy marshal, whose courageous devotion to his official duties had saved the life of Justice Field at the expense of that of his would-be assassin.  We have already seen that Neagle, being in the custody of the sheriff of San Joaquin county, upon a charge of murder in the shooting of Judge Terry, had presented a petition to the United States Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus to the end that he might thereby be restored to his liberty.

A writ was issued, and upon its return, August 17th, the sheriff of San Joaquin county produced Neagle and a copy of the warrant under which he held him in custody, issued by the justice of the peace of that county, and also of the affidavit of Sarah Althea Terry, upon which the warrant was granted.  Neagle being desirous of traversing the return of the sheriff, further proceedings were adjourned until the 22d of the month, and in the meantime he was placed in the custody of the United States marshal for the district.  On the 22d a traverse of the return was filed by him stating the particulars of the homicide with which he was charged as narrated above, and averring that he was at the time of its commission a deputy marshal of the United States for the district, acting under the orders of his superior, and under the directions of the Attorney-General of the United States in protecting