| |
In 1887 inflamed public sentiment operated
disastrously in the case of Charles Goslaw, of Los Gatos. The murders committed
in and about the pretty foothill town, now one of the most peaceful and
law-abiding on the Coast, had aroused the people, and the latest had brought
them to a white heat of indignation and resentment. This one had been committed
on the main street of the city. Two Mexicans quarreled and one of them,
Encarnacion Garcia, killed the other. A mob of citizens gathered, the slayer
was seized and without ceremony hanged from the bridge over Los Gatos Creek. It
was reported at the time that Goslaw threw the loop of the rope over the
murderer's neck. Not long after the tragedy, Goslaw, who was a house-mover,
went to San Jose, leaving in charge of his house-moving tools an old man named
H. A. Grant. He returned in an intoxicated condition to find that Grant,
without permission to do so, had moved the tools to another part of town.
Goslaw became furiously angry. He swore that he would find Grant and give him a
sound drubbing. After taking a few more drinks to brace him up, he went to
Grant's cabin and assaulted the old man. His fists were his only weapons, but
as Grant was physically his inferior there is no doubt that finding his task an
easy one he allowed his rage to carry him further than he had intended. Leaving
Grant bruised and helpless on the floor, Goslaw went downtown, found the
constable and asked to be arrested for battery. There was clear proof that he
never intended murder and that he had not thought that the beating would result
in death. He was arrested for battery and allowed to go on his own
recognizance. A few days later Grant died. Then it was that outraged Los Gatos
cried for vengeance. The carnival of crime that had given a black eye to the
town must be stopped and the only way to stop it was to have the extreme
penalty visited upon every person in Los Gatos and vicinity who should take the
life of his fellow man. Grant's death caused the rearrest of Goslaw, this time
for murder. He was tried in the Superior Court at San Jose and, having no
attorney, the court appointed a young man who had just been admitted to the
bar. Thus handicapped, Goslaw had slim chance of escaping conviction under
testimony adduced by the prosecution, supplemented by the powerful arguments
made by the district attorney and his aids. The jury found Goslaw guilty of
murder in the first degree and the death sentence was imposed. Without money
and lacking powerful friends, Goslaw was unable to take further steps and might
have saved his neck. His newspaper friends did what they could, but no headway
against the tide of inflamed public opinion could be made. But they resolved
that when the time came for marching him to the scaffold he should not be in a
condition to realize his position. Therefore some of these friends stayed in
the death cell all of the night preceding the execution. They plied Goslaw with
liquor which he was quite willing to drink so that when the sheriff came to
take him to the scaffold he was so far gone in liquor that he could neither
stand on his feet nor understand what the sheriff wanted. In that maudlin
condition he met his death and the persons who were responsible for this
condition have never regretted their work. They felt at the time that a
judicial murder was about to be committed and that it was a humane act to
ameliorate if they could not deaden the victim's mental agony. In their opinion
Goslaw should have been convicted of manslaughter and it was afterwards their
belief that had the trail been postponed for six months such a verdict would
have been rendered.
|
|
