Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/199

Rh The description given by Jansen of the man who struck him down, was immediately recognized by the police authorities as a plain and accurate portrait of James Stuart. The police fearing the formation of a "Committee of Vigilance," determined to use every effort to arrest the guilty parties, and at four o'clock in the afternoon following the night of the assault, they were satisfied that they held in custody the redoubtable Jim Stuart, and his companion, Jo Wildred, the undoubted perpetrators of the assault and robbery in Jansen's shop.

I was at that time the local reporter upon the leading morning journal in San Francsico, and, as such, had every facility of following up, through its different stages, to its most unexpected termination, this remarkable case. Greater than ever was the excitement when the journals announced in the morning that Stuart and his companion had been arrested. Crowds began to gather at an early hour on the plaza, and the citizens rather freely expressed their opinion that, unless the authorities acted with unusual promptitude in this case, they would save the authorities the trouble of acting at all, and "do for" Stuart and Wildred themselves.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, I was informed that a preliminary examination of the two men would take place that afternoon before a magistrate. Jansen, it appeared, had become worse, and it was feared that he would die. It was, therefore, highly important that the men should be confronted with him as speedily as possible, and his testimony taken. This was done. Soon after noon the men were privately conveyed to Jansen's apartment, and, in the presence only of the examining magistrate and his clerk, Jansen's medical attendant, another witness, two policemen, and myself, Jansen's testimony was taken, with the warning from his physician that he might be upon the verge of the grave. When the men were introduced, Jansen looked carefully at both of them, scanning thoroughly their features, and then unhesitatingly stated that he recognized the smaller (known as Jim Stuart) as the man who felled him with the bar of iron; of this he could have no doubt; but was positive that he was the man. As to the other, he was not so sure; but about him his doubts were light. He fully and firmly believed, in short, that the two men who had committed the crime were then before him; and from Jansen's room, with Jansen's testimony, then supposed to be that of a dying man, they were taken before the examining magistrate, whose office was in the plaza, in what was then known as the "Adobe Building."

The plaza was filled with an excited populace, and it was evident that trouble was brewing. The prejudice in San Francisco at that time, against all persons who had come to California from Australia, was very strong. Some very bad men had undoubtedly arrived from there, and much of the crime committed in the State might