Vigilante Justice.

New York:: Reynal & Company, 1956.. 1st Edition.. Hardbound . BINDING/CONDITION: tan cloth with red spine text; a Very Good+ book, with a Very Good dust jacket; publisher's price on the jacket flap is intact.. 8vo (about 8.5 inches tall) . Illustrated endpapers. Description: ''Give them a good honest trial, and then hang them!'' Such was the cry of mining-town tribunals in the turbulent years of the Forty-niners in San Francisco. Out of the chaos of crime and mockery of the courts, the Vigilantes arose to impose their own form of law and order upon a demoralized city. Their story is one of the most colorful in American history. General Sherman and Captain Farragut, both to achieve later fame, were among the actors on a central stage, crowded with gamblers, ex-convicts, prostitutes and murderers. The Committee not only took law into their own hands, but raised money to build a city jail, which had not previously existed. The citizens of San Francisco in the 1850s were fighting not only an invasion of criminals from without, but an inner social corruption born of their own earlier indifference to social responsibilities. This history points out the importance of leadership in democratic society.