starting-point for new attacks. He assailed bitterly and fearlessly the
countless abuses of the time, until at last he was recognized as a
dangerous opponent by the heretofore cynically amused higher criminals.
Many rumors of plots against King's life are to be found in the detailed
history of the day. Whether his final assassination was the result of
one of these plots, or simply the outcome of a burst of passion, matters
little. Ultimately it had its source in the ungoverned spirit of the
times.

Four months after the farce of the Cora trial, on May 14, King published
an attack on the appointment of a certain man to a position in the
federal custom house. The candidate had happened to be involved with
James P. Casey in a disgraceful election. Casey was at that time one of
the supervisors. Incidental to his attack on the candidate, King wrote
as follows: "It does not matter how bad a man Casey had been, or how
much benefit it might be to the public to have him out of the way, we
cannot accord to any one citizen the right to kill him or even beat him,
without justifiable provocation. The fact that Casey has been an inmate
of Sing Sing prison in New York is no offense against the laws of this
State; nor is the fact of his having stuffed himself through the ballot
box, as elected to the Board of Supervisors from a district where it is
said he was not even a candidate, any justification for Mr. Bagley to
shoot Casey, however richly the latter may deserve to have his neck
stretched for such fraud on the people."

Casey read this editorial in full knowledge that thousands of his
fellow-citizens would also read it. He was at that time, in addition to
his numerous political cares, editor of a small newspaper called _The
Sunday Times_. This had been floated for the express purpose of
supporting the extremists of the legalists' party, which, as we have