to every movement of that kind and believed in due obedience to the law
and in submission to the constituted authorities under every
circumstances, likewise organized under the title of the Law and Order
Association. Impulse was given to the movement by an unlooked-for
incident. The Daily Herald had been for four years annually voted by the
guild of auctioneers the auction advertisements, which filled one whole
page of the paper. John Nugent was owner and editor. He had approved and
upheld the Vigilance Committee of 1851 in the Herald. It was expected
that he would approve the Committee just organized. He adopted the
contrary course. The Herald denounced the Committee in strong terms. The
merchants had generally approved and joined the Committee. That morning
every copy of the Herald was gathered, a pile of the papers made in
Front street, and burned. It was the significant rebuke which the
merchants made; but they did not stop at that - they erased their names
from the carriers' lists. Thousands of other citizens did the same. That
morning the Herald was a sheet of forty columns, with the largest
advertising patronage and largest circulation of any daily newspaper in
San Francisco. The next morning it appeared, a small sheet, not much
larger than a sheet of foolscap, of twenty-four columns. The Herald was
the favorite organ of the Democracy, of the anti-Broderick and Southern
wing of the party, particularly. The especial organ of that wing, the
Times and Transcript, had ceased publication a few months before, and
its patronage went mostly to the Herald. Nugent was opposed to Gwin, the
powerful leader of the anti-Broderick party, more than he was to
Broderick; but this was overlooked by many of Gwin's supporters. The
friends, of General McDougall were his warmest friends and backers, They
now rallied to his support and to the sustenance of the Herald. General
Volney E. Howard, J. Thompson Campbell, Judge R. Augustus Thompson, W.
T. Sherman, the manager of Lucas, Turner & Co.'s banking house here -
now General Sherman - Austin E. Smith, Sam. E. Brooks, Gouverneur