of the jail guard, and of the Law and Order forces also, the admission of the Vigilance officers into the jail, and the surrender to them of Casey and Cora, who were taken to the rooms of the Committee, and put in the separate cells prepared for them.  The whole affair occurred within the space of an hour.  The State and City and County authorities had succumbed to the Committee without resistance, and the law was usurped by the new and self-constituted power.  The Courts were virtually overborne and ignored, if not derided; and the will of the Vigilance Committee became the supreme law in San Francisco.

In the County Jail at the time was Rod.  Backus, a young man of good family, cousin of Phil.  Backus, an auctioneer of considerable prominence in mercantile and social circles.  Rod.  Backus had shot dead a man whose face he had never seen until the moment before he shot him, a dozen paces distant.  It was in Stout’s alley.  It was a murder, a wanton murder, without provocation, excuse, extenuation or palliation whatever.  Rod.  Backus was a frequent visitor at a house of the demi-monde in the alley, and one Jennie French was his favorite.  As he came to visit her one evening, at dusk, she was standing in the doorway, at the head of the iron stairway which led to the entrance on the second floor.  On the opposite side of the alley, walking slowly toward Jackson street, was a man of ordinary appearance.  As Rod met her on the top platform, Jennie said to him:  “Rod, that fellow has insulted me; shoot the — -.”  At the word Backus drew his pistol and fired.  The man fell.  He had turned his face the moment Backus fired.  It was an instantly fatal shot.  Backus had influential friends among business men and politicians.  The Coroner held an inquest.  A jury to hold Backus blameless had been secured, but they overshot their mark — the thing was too transparent, too bare-faced.  The murdered man was a German much respected by his countrymen.  They determined to press the matter to justice.  Backus was indicted, tried, convicted of murder and sentenced to death.  None of just mind questioned the righteousness.  But his case was appealed, and at last he had his crime reduced in degree, and received sentence of a short term — three or five years in San Quentin prison.  This easy let-off did not satisfy him; he wanted a verdict of acquittal, and expected still to get it.  Accordingly he again appealed his case, and while in the County Jail awaiting the action of the Supreme Court upon his appeal, the Committee had seized and taken away Casey and Cora.  He was not molested; nevertheless, his fear of consequences impelled him to withdraw his appeal, submit to his sentence, and serve his term at San Quentin.  He even begged to be taken there at once, and he was.  The explanation made by the Committee leaders for not taking Backus was that the law had already passed judgment in his case, and the Committee was not disposed to interfere with the judgments of the Courts.  The explanation was