In every civilized community, society, acting with a keen instinct of self-preservation, has always punished with just severity those capital offenders against peace and good order who strike at the very foundation on which all government must rest.
[1] It has been conclusively established since that he was armed with his usual bowie-knife at the time.
[2] NOTE.—Whilst there was a general concurrence of opinion as to the threats of Terry and of the fate he met at the hands of Neagle and of the bearing of Justice Field through all the proceedings, there were exceptions to this judgment. There were persons who sympathized with Terry and his associates and grieved at his fate, although he had openly avowed his intention not merely to insult judicial officers for their judicial conduct, but to kill them in case they resented the insult offered. He married Sarah Althea Hill after the United States Circuit Court had delivered its opinion, in open court, announcing its decision that she had committed forgery, perjury, and subornation of perjury, and was a woman of abandoned character. And yet a writer in the Overland Monthly in October, 1889, attributes his assault upon the marshal—striking him violently in the face for the execution of the order of the court to remove her from the court-room because of her gross imputation upon the judges—chiefly to his chivalric spirit to protect his wife, and declares that "the universal verdict" upon him "will be that he was possessed of sterling integrity of purpose, and stood out from the rest of his race as a strongly individualized character, which has been well called an anachronism in our civilization." And Governor Pennoyer, of Oregon, in his message to the legislature of that State, pronounced the officer appointed by the marshal under the direction of the Attorney-General to protect Justices Field and Sawyer from threatened violence and murder as a "secret armed assassin," who accompanied a Federal judge in California, and who shot down in cold blood an unarmed citizen of that State.
CHAPTER XX.
THE APPEAL TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND THE SECOND TRIAL OF SARAH ALTHEA'S DIVORCE CASE.
With the discharge from arrest of the brave deputy marshal, Neagle, who had stood between Justice Field and the would-be assassin's assault, and the vindication by the Circuit Court of the right of the general government to protect its officers from personal violence, for the discharge of their duties, at the hands of disappointed litigants, the public mind, which had been greatly excited by the proceedings narrated, became quieted. No apprehension was felt that there would be any reversal of the decision of the Circuit Court on the appeal which was taken to the Supreme Court. General and absolute confidence was expressed in the determination of the highest tribunal of the nation. The appeal was argued on the part of Neagle by the Attorney-General of the United States and Joseph H. Choate, Esq., of the New York bar; and the briefs of counsel in the Circuit Court were also filed. The attorney-general of California and Mr. Zachariah Montgomery appeared upon behalf of the State, and briefs of Messrs. Shellabarger and Wilson were also filed in its behalf.
The argument of the Attorney-General of the United States was exceedingly able. He had watched all the proceedings of the case from the outset. He had directed that protection should be extended by the marshal to Justice Field and Judge Sawyer against any threatened violence, and he believed strongly in the doctrine that the officers of the general government were entitled to receive everywhere throughout the country full protection against all violence whilst in the discharge of their duties. He believed that such protection was necessary to the efficiency and permanency of the government; and its necessity in both respects was never more ably presented.
The argument of Mr. Choate covered all the questions of law and fact in the case and was marked by that great ability and invincible logic and by that clearness and precision of statement which have rendered him one of the ablest of advocates and jurists in the country, one who all acknowledge has few peers and no superiors at the bar of the nation.[1]
The argument of the attorney-general of the State consisted chiefly of a repetition of the doctrine that, for offenses committed within its limits, the State alone has jurisdiction to try the offenders—a position which within its proper limits, and when not carried to the protection of resistance to the authority of the United States, has never been questioned.
The most striking feature of the argument on behalf of the State was presented by Zachariah Montgomery. It may interest the reader to observe the true Terry flavor introduced into his argument, and the manifest perversion of the facts into which it led him. He deeply sympathized with Terry in the grief and mortification which he suffered in being charged with having assaulted the marshal with a deadly weapon in the presence of the Circuit Court in September, 1888. He attempted to convince the Supreme Court that one of its members had deliberately made a misrecital, in the order committing Terry for contempt, and treated this as a mitigation of that individual's subsequent attack on Justice Field. He did not, however, attempt to gainsay the testimony of the numerous witnesses who swore that Terry did try to draw his knife while yet in the court-room on that occasion, and that, being temporarily prevented from doing so by force, he completed the act as soon as this force was withdrawn, and pursued the marshal with knife in hand, loudly declaring in the hearing of the court, in language too coarse and vulgar to be repeated, that he would do sundry terrible things to those who should obstruct him on his way to his wife. As she was then in the custody of the marshal and in his office, under an order of the court; and as Terry had resisted her arrest and removal from the court-room until overpowered by several strong men, and as he had instantly on being released rushed madly from the court-room, drawing and brandishing his knife as he went, the conclusion is irresistible that he was determined upon her rescue from the marshal, if, with the aid of his knife, he could accomplish it. That Mr. Montgomery allowed these facts, which constitute the offense of an assault with a deadly weapon, to go unchallenged, compels us to the charitable presumption that he did not know the law.
A reading of the decisions on this subject would have taught him that in order to constitute that offense it is not necessary that the assailant should actually stab with his knife or shoot with his pistol. The assault by Terry was commenced in the court-room, under the eyes of the judges, and was a continuing act, ending only-with the wrenching of the knife from his hands. It was all committed "in the presence of the court," for the Supreme Court has decided in the Savin case that "the jury-room and hallway were parts of the place in which the court was required by law to hold its sessions, and that the court, at least when in session, is present in every part of the place set apart for its own use and for the use of its officers, jurors, and witnesses, and that misbehavior in such a place is misbehavior in the presence of the court. (See vol. 131, U.S. Reports, page 277, where the case is reported.)
Mr. Montgomery was feckless enough to contradict the record when he stated that Justice Field in his opinion in the revivor case "took occasion to discuss at considerable length the question of the genuineness of the aforesaid marriage document, maintaining very strenuously that it was a forgery, and that this it was that so aroused the indignation of Mrs. Terry that she sprang to her feet and charged Justice Field with having been bought."
There is not a word of truth in this statement. Justice Field, in overruling the demurrer, never discussed at all the genuineness of the marriage agreement. How, then, could it be true that words, nowhere to be found in Judge Field's opinion, "so aroused the indignation of Mrs. Terry that she sprang to her feet and charged Justice Field with having been bought"? Justice Field discussed only the legal effect of the decree already rendered by the United States Circuit Court. He said nothing to excite the woman's ire, except to state the necessary steps to be taken to enforce the decree. He had not participated in the trial of the original case, and had never been called upon to express any opinion concerning the agreement. Mr. Montgomery said in his brief that the opinion read by Justice Field, "while overruling a demurrer, assails this contract, in effect pronouncing it a forgery." This statement is totally unfounded. From it the casual reader would suppose that the demurrer was to the complaint in the original case, and that the court was forestalling evidence, whereas it was a demurrer in a proceeding to revive the suit, which had abated by the death of the party, and to give effect to the decree already rendered therein, after a full hearing of the testimony.
Mr. Montgomery said:
"The opinion also charges Mrs. Terry with perjury, after she has sworn that it was genuine."
The judgment of a court may be referred to by one of its judges, even though the rendering of the judgment convicted a party or a witness, of perjury, without furnishing the perjurer with a justification for denouncing the judge. Mr. Montgomery furthermore said that the "opinion charged her not only with forgery and perjury, but with unchastity as well; for if she had not been Sharon's wife, she had unquestionably been his kept mistress." He says:
"At the announcement of this decision from the bench in the presence of a crowded court-room; a decision which she well knew, before the going down of another sun, would be telegraphed to the remotest corners of the civilized world, to be printed and reprinted with sensational head-lines in every newspaper, and talked over by every scandal-monger on the face of the earth; was it any wonder—not that it was right—but was it any wonder that this high-spirited, educated woman, sprung from as respectable a family as any in the great State of Missouri, proud of her ancestry, and prizing her good name above everything on this earth, when she heard herself thus adjudged in one breath to be guilty of forgery, perjury, and unchastity, and thus degraded from the exalted position of wife—to which the Supreme Court of her State had said she was entitled—down to that of a paid harlot; was it any wonder, I say, that like an enraged tigress she sprang to her feet, and in words of indignation sought to defend her wounded honor?"
Mr. Montgomery did not speak truly when he said that on this occasion such a decision was announced from the bench. The decision was announced on the 24th of December, 1885, nearly three years before. The only decision announced on this occasion was that the case did not die with the plaintiff therein—William Sharon—but that the executor of his estate had the right to act—had a right to be substituted for the deceased, and to have the decree executed just as it would have been if Mr. Sharon had lived. It was amazing effrontery and disregard of the truth on the part of Mr. Montgomery to make such a statement as he did to the Supreme Court, when the record, lying open before them, virtually contradicted what he was saying.
Towards the close of the decision Justice Field did make reference to Mrs. Terry's testimony in the Superior Court. He said that in the argument some stress had been laid upon the fact that in a State court, where the judge had decided in Mrs. Terry's favor, the witnesses had been examined in open court, where their bearing could be observed by the judge; while in the federal court the testimony had been taken before an examiner, and the court had not the advantage of hearing and seeing the witnesses. In reply to this Justice Field called attention to the fact that Judge Sullivan, while rendering his decision in favor of Mrs. Terry, had accused her of having wilfully perjured herself in several instances while testifying in her own case, and of having suborned perjury, and of having knowingly offered in evidence a forged document. But this reference to Judge Sullivan's accusations against Mrs. Terry was not reached in the reading of Justice Field's opinion until nearly an hour after Mrs. Terry had been forcibly removed from the court-room for contempt, and therefore she did not hear it. This fact appears on record in the contempt proceedings.
But the most extraordinary feature of Mr. Montgomery's brief is yet to be noticed. He says that "If the assault so made by Judge Terry was not for the purpose of then and there killing or seriously injuring the party assaulted, but for the purpose of provoking him into a duel, then the killing of the assailant for such an assault was a crime."
And again he says:
"I have said that if the purpose of Judge Terry's assault upon Field was for the purpose of killing him then and there, Neagle, and not Neagle only, but anybody else, would have been justifiable in killing Terry to save the life of Field; but that if Terry's object in assaulting Field was not then and there to kill or otherwise greatly injure him, but to draw him into a duel, then such an assault was not sufficient to justify the killing."
He then proceeds to speak of Judge Terry's duel with Senator Broderick, in which the latter was killed. He refers to many eminent citizens who have fought duels, although he admits that dueling is a sin. He then explains that "as a rule the duelist who considers himself wronged by another, having the position and standing of a gentleman, tenders him an insult, either by a slap in the face or otherwise, in order to attract a challenge. Such undoubtedly was Terry's purpose in this case. All of Terry's threats point precisely to that."
Here Mr. Montgomery seems to be in accord with Sarah Althea Terry, who, as we have seen, stated that "Judge Terry intended to take out his satisfaction in slaps." In the same direction is the declaration of Porter Ashe, when he said:
"Instant death is a severe punishment for slapping a man on the face. I have no suspicion that Terry meant to kill Field or to do him further harm than to humiliate him."
And also that of Mr. Baggett, one of Terry's counsel, who said:
"I have had frequent conversations with Terry about Field, and he has often told me that Field has used his court and his power as a judge to humiliate him, and that he intended to humiliate him in return to the extent of his power. 'I will slap his face,' said Terry to me, 'if I run across him, but I shall not put myself out of the way to meet him. I do not intend to kill him, but I will insult him by slapping his face, knowing that he will not resent it.'"
What knightly courage was here. If ever a new edition of the dueling code is printed, it should have for a frontispiece a cut representing the stalwart Terry dealing stealthy blows from behind upon a justice of the United States Supreme Court, 72 years of age, after having previously informed a trusted friend that he believed himself safe from any resistance by the object of his attack. It may be here also said that Justice Field, as was well known to every one, had for many years suffered from great lameness in consequence of an injury received by him in early life, and with difficulty could walk without assistance.
Mr. Montgomery, with freezing candor, informs the Supreme Court that, in strict accordance with the chivalrous code of honor, Judge Terry administered blows upon a member of that court, to force him into a duel, because of a judicial act with which he was displeased.
He says:
"The most conclusive proof that Terry had no intention, for the time being, of seriously hurting Field, but that his sole purpose was to tender him an insult, is found in the fact that he only used his open hand, and that, too, in a mild manner."
We often hear of the "mild-mannered men" who "scuttle ships" and "cut throats," but this is the very first one whose "very mild manner" of beating a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States with his hand was ever certified to by an attorney and counsellor of that court in the argument of a case before it.
It would be difficult to conceive of anything more puerile or absurd than this pretense that Terry had the slightest expectation of provoking a man of Justice Field's age, official position, and physical condition, to fight a duel with him in vindication of the right of the court over which he presided to imprison a man for contempt for beating the marshal in the face with his fist, and afterwards pursuing him with a knife, in the presence of the court, for obeying an order of the court.
Mr. Montgomery appears to have been imported into the case mainly for the purpose of reviewing the facts and giving them the Terry stamp. His ambition seems to have been to insult Justice Field and his associates in the Circuit Court by charging them with misrepresenting the facts of the occurrence, thus repeating Terry's reckless accusations to that effect. For Terry he had only words of eulogy and admiration, and said he was "straightforward, candid, and incapable of concealment or treachery himself, and therefore never suspected treachery, even in an enemy."
These noble qualities Terry had illustrated by assaulting Justice Field from behind while the latter was in a position which placed him entirely at the mercy of his assailant.
Montgomery thought that not only Neagle, but the President, Attorney-General, district attorney, and Marshal Franks should be arraigned for Terry's murder.
Although Justice Field had expressly advised the marshal that it was unnecessary for anybody to accompany him to Los Angeles, and although Neagle went contrary to his wish, and only because the marshal considered himself instructed by the Attorney-General to send him, yet Mr. Montgomery especially demanded that he (Justice Field) should be tried for Terry's homicide. This, too, in the face of the fact that under instructions from the attorney-general of the State of California, aroused to his duty by the Governor, the false, malicious, and infamous charge made against Justice Field by Sarah Althea Terry was dismissed by the magistrate who had entertained it, on the ground that it was manifestly destitute of the shadow of a foundation, and that any further proceedings against him would be "a burning disgrace to the State."
The decision of the Circuit Court discharging Neagle from the custody of the sheriff of San Joaquin county was affirmed by the Supreme court of the United States on the 14th of April, 1890. Justice Field did not sit at the hearing of the case, and took no part in its decision, nor did he remain in the conference room with his associate justices at any time while it was being considered or on the bench when it was delivered. The opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Miller. Dissenting opinions were filed by Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Lamar. Justice Miller's opinion concludes as follows:
"We have thus given, in this case, a most attentive consideration to all the questions of law and fact which we have thought to be properly involved in it. We have felt it to be our duty to examine into the facts with a completeness justified by the importance of the case, as well as from the duty imposed upon us by the statute, which we think requires of us to place ourselves, as far as possible, in the place of the Circuit Court and to examine the testimony and the arguments in it, and to dispose of the party as law and justice require.
"The result at which we have arrived upon this examination is, that in the protection of the person and the life of Mr. Justice Field, while in the discharge of his official duties, Neagle was authorized to resist the attack of Terry upon him; that Neagle was correct in the belief that without prompt action on his part the assault of Terry upon the Judge would have ended in the death of the latter; that such being his well-founded belief, he was justified in taking the life of Terry, as the only means of preventing the death of the man who was intended to be his victim; that in taking the life of Terry, under the circumstances, he was acting under the authority of the law of the United States, and was justified in doing so; and that he is not liable to answer in the courts of California on account of his part in that transaction.
"We therefore affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court authorizing his discharge from the custody of the sheriff of San Joaquin county."
[1] NOTE.—Mr. Choate took great interest in the question involved—the right of the Government of the United States to protect its officers from violence whilst engaged in the discharge of their duties,—deeming its maintenance essential to the efficiency of the Government itself; and he declined to make any charge or take any fee for his professional services in the case. The privilege of supporting this great principle before the highest tribunal of the country, where his powers would be most effectively engaged in securing its recognition, was considered by him as sufficient reward. Certainly he has that reward in the full establishment of that principle—for which, also, both he and Attorney-General Miller will receive the thanks of all who love and revere our national government and trust that its existence may be perpetuated.
Mr. James C. Carter, the distinguished advocate of New York, also took a deep interest in the questions involved, and had several consultations with Mr. Choate upon them; and his professional services were given with the same generous and noble spirit that characterized the course of Mr. Choate.
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
Thus ends the history of a struggle between brutal violence and the judicial authority of the United States. Commencing in a mercenary raid upon a rich man's estate, relying wholly for success on forgery, perjury, and the personal fear of judges, and progressing through more than six years of litigation in both the Federal and the State courts, it eventuated in a vindication by the Supreme Court of the United States of the constitutional power of the Federal Government, through its Executive Department, to protect the judges of the United States courts from the revengeful and murderous assaults of defeated litigants, without subjecting its appointed agents to malicious prosecutions for their fidelity to duty, by petty State officials, in league with the assailants.
The dignity and the courage of Justice Field, who made the stand against brute force, and who, refusing either to avoid a great personal danger or to carry a weapon for his defense, trusted his life to that great power which the Constitution has placed behind the judicial department for its support, was above all praise.
The admirable conduct of the faithful deputy marshal, Neagle, in whose small frame the power of a nation dwelt at the moment when, like a modern David, he slew a new Goliath, illustrated what one frail mortal can do, who scorns danger when it crosses the path of duty.
The prompt action of the Executive Department, through its Attorney-General, in directing the marshal to afford all necessary protection against threatened danger, undoubtedly saved a justice of the Supreme Court from assassination, and the Government from the disgrace of having pusillanimously looked on while the deed was done.
The skill and learning of the lawyers who presented the case of Neagle in the lower and in the appellate courts reflected honor on the legal profession.
The exhaustive and convincing opinion of Circuit Judge Sawyer, when ordering the release of Neagle, seemed to have made further argument unnecessary.
The grand opinion of Justice Miller, in announcing the decision of the Supreme Court affirming the order of the Circuit Court, was the fitting climax of all. Its statement of the facts is the most graphic and vivid of the many that have been written. Its vindication of the constitutional right of the Federal Government to exist, and to preserve itself alive in all its powers, and on every foot of its territory, without leave of, or hindrance by, any other authority, makes it one of the most important of all the utterances of that great tribunal.
Its power is made the more apparent by the dissent, which rests rather upon the assertion that Congress had not legislated in exact terms for the case under consideration, than upon any denial of the power of the Federal Government to protect its courts from violence. The plausibility of this ground is dissipated by the citations in the majority opinion of the California statute concerning sheriffs, and of the federal statute concerning marshals, by which the latter are invested with all the powers of the sheriffs in the States wherein they reside, thus showing clearly that marshals possess the authority to protect officers of the United States which sheriffs possess to protect officers of the State against criminal assaults of every kind and degree.
During the argument in the Neagle case, as well as in the public discussions of the subject, much stress was laid by the friends of Terry upon the power and duty of the State to afford full protection to all persons within its borders, including the judges of the courts of the United States. They could not see why it was necessary for the Attorney-General of the United States to extend the arm of the Federal Government. They held that the police powers of the State were sufficient for all purposes, and that they were the sole lawful refuge for all whose lives were in danger. But they did not explain why it was that the State never did afford protection to Judges Field and Sawyer, threatened as they notoriously were by two desperate persons.
The laws of the State made it the duty of every sheriff to preserve the peace of the State, but the Terrys were permitted, undisturbed and unchecked, to proclaim their intention to break the peace. If they had announced their intention, for nearly a year, to assassinate the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, would they have been permitted to take their lives, before being made to feel the power of the State? Would an organized banditti be permitted to unseat State judges by violence, and only feel the strong halter of the law after they had accomplished their purpose? Can no preventive measures be taken under the police powers of the State, when ruffians give notice that they are about to obstruct the administration of justice by the murder of high judicial officers? It was not so much to insure the punishment of Terry and his wife if they should murder Justice Field, as to prevent the murder, that the executive branch of the United States Government surrounded him with the necessary safeguards. How can justice be administered under the federal statutes if the federal judges must fight their way, while going from district to district, to overcome armed and vindictive litigants who differ with them concerning the judgments they have rendered?
But it was said Judge Terry could have been held to bail to keep the peace. The highest bail that can be required in such cases under the law of the State is five thousand dollars.
What restraint would that have been upon Terry, who was so filled with malice and so reckless of consequences that he finally braved the gallows by attempting the murder of the object of his hate? But even this weak protection never was afforded. Shall it be said that Justice Field ought to have gone to the nearest justice of the peace and obsequiously begged to have Terry placed under bonds? But this he could not have done until he reached the State, and he was in peril from the moment that he reached the State line. The dust had not been brushed from his clothing before some of the papers which announced his arrival eagerly inquired what Terry would do and when he would do it. Some of them seemed most anxious for the sensation that a murder would produce.
The State was active enough when Terry had been prevented from doing his bloody work upon Justice Field. The constable who had been telegraphed for before the train reached Lathrop on the fatal day, but who could not be found, and was not at the station to aid in preserving the peace, was quick enough to arrest Neagle without a warrant, for an act not committed in his presence, and therefore known only to him by hearsay. Against the remonstrances of a supreme justice of the United States, who had also been chief justice of California, and who might have been supposed to know the laws as well at least as a constable, the protection placed over him by the Executive branch of the Federal Government was unlawfully taken from him and the protector incarcerated in jail. The constable doubtless did only what he was told and what he believed to be his duty. Neagle declined to make any issue with him of a technical character and went with him uncomplainingly. If Neagle's pistol had missed fire, or his aim had been false, he might have been arrested on the spot for his attempt to protect Justice Field, while Terry would have been left free at the same time to finish his murderous work then, or to have pursued Justice Field into the car and, free from all interference by Neagle, have despatched him there. The State officials were all activity to protect the would-be murderer, but seemed never to have been ruffled in the least degree over the probable assassination of a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Terrys were never thought to be in any danger. The general belief was that Judges Field and Sawyer were in great danger from them.
The death of Terry displeased three classes: first, all who were willing to see Justice Field murdered; second, all who naturally sympathize with the tiger in his hunt for prey, and who thought it a pity that so good a fighter as Terry should lose his life in seeking that of another; and, third, all who preferred to see Sarah Althea enjoy the property of the Sharon estate in place of its lawful heirs.
It is plain from the foregoing review that the State authorities of California presented no obstruction to Terry and his wife as they moved towards the accomplishment of their deadly purpose against Justice Field. It was the Executive arm of the nation operating through the deputy United States marshal, under orders from the Department of Justice, that prevented the assassination of Justice Field by David S. Terry.
* * * * *
It only remains to state the result of the second trial of the case between Sarah Althea Hill, now Mrs. Terry, and the executor of William Sharon before the Superior Court of the city of San Francisco. It will be remembered that on the first trial in that court, presided over by Judge Sullivan, a judgment was entered declaring that Miss Hill and William Sharon had intermarried on the 25th of August, 1880, and had at the time executed a written contract of marriage under the laws of California, and had assumed marital relations and subsequently lived together as husband and wife. From the judgment rendered an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the State. A motion was also made for a new trial in that case, and from the order denying the new trial an appeal was also taken to the Supreme Court. The decision on the appeal from the judgment resulted in its affirmance. The result of the appeal from the order denying a new trial was its reversal, with a direction for a new trial. The effect of that reversal was to open the whole case. In the meantime William Sharon had died and Miss Hill had married David S. Terry. The executor of William Sharon, Frederick W. Sharon, appeared as his representative in the suit, and filed a supplemental answer. The case was tried in the Superior Court, before Judge Shafter, in July, 1890, and on the 4th of August following the Judge filed his findings and conclusions of law, which were, briefly, as follows:
That the plaintiff and William Sharon, deceased, did not, on the 25th of August, 1880, or at any other time, consent to intermarry or become, by mutual agreement or otherwise, husband and wife; nor did they, thereafter, or at any time, live or cohabit together as husband and wife, or mutually or otherwise assume marital duties, rights, or obligations; that they did not, on that day or at any other time, in the city and county of San Francisco, or elsewhere, jointly or otherwise, make or sign a declaration of marriage in writing or otherwise; and that the declaration of marriage mentioned in the complaint was false, counterfeited, fabricated, forged, and fraudulent, and, therefore, null and void. The conclusion of the court was that the plaintiff and William Sharon were not, on August 25, 1880, and never had been husband and wife, and that the plaintiff had no right or claim, legal or equitable, to any property or share in any property, real or personal, of which William Sharon was the owner or in possession, or which was then or might thereafter be held by the executor of his last will and testament the defendant, Frederick W. Sharon. Accordingly, judgment was entered for the defendant. An appeal was taken from that judgment to the Supreme Court of California, and on the 5th of August, 1892, Sarah Althea Terry having become insane pending the appeal, and P.P. Ashe, Esq., having been appointed and qualified as the general guardian of her person and estate, it was ordered that he be substituted in the case, and that she subsequently appear by him as her guardian. In October following, the appeal was dismissed.
Thus ended the legal controversy initiated by this adventuress to obtain a part of the estate of the deceased millionaire.