doctrine subject to many shades of irrele vancy or incompetency. The trial was re markable for an utter avoidance of the slightest reference by the prosecution to the steamboat fraud of the accused, when there was much temptation toward prejudic ing the jury against them by mentioning the connection. Kissane, the only one on trial, was, after conviction, sentenced to the full term of im prisonment after he had made an ineffectual but pathetic appeal for mercy. After only a year of penal service he was pardoned by Governor Myron H. Clark, and the source of influence to that extent and the reasons for it became and remains a mystery. Kissane then took up a new career on the Pacific coast. He prefaced it by assisting in the notable Walker' filibustering expedition to Central America and obtained some fortune by levying upon the valuables and fears of its inhabitants. When the marauding expe dition failed, a rebellion broke out in China which attracted the bravado and ingenuity of Kissane, who journeyed thither to join the forces of the emperor and returned to Cali fornia with the rank of general in the Celes tial service. The devil seemed to befriend him, and his luck of acquittal in the Martha Washington case, of his pardon, of his money luck in Grenada, and good fortune in China, was added to by his luck of rapidly acquir ing wealth in real estate and mining specu
lations. Having publicly died as Kissane by causing his death in Grenada to be an nounced with apparent authenticity, and changing his name and former personal ap pearance, it was a long time before the Cali fornia millionaire was accidentally discovered to be Kissane. The Chemical Bank now commenced suit in San Francisco to recover from him the plunder, now amounting with interest to twenty thousand dollars, but here the luck again favored, for the California court upheld his plea in bar of the statute of limitations, refusing its operation to suspend during his foreign absences — a ruling that engendered disagreeable rumors regarding the integrity of the trial judge. Of course newspaper gossip again recited the two canses celebres with which Kissane was con nected, but his acquittal and pardon seemed to rehabilitate the millionaire, and his bold deeds as filibuster and Chinese warrior put a halo of notability around him, so he lived pleasantly and died as happily as may be. It is always a misfortune to the legal pro fession that nisi prias does not carry along a trained reporter; because much interesting legal discussion and valuable decisions on novel legal questions constantly transpire but are unfortunately lost and become mere newspaper traditions. But the now cited Chemical Bank forgery case with its incidents of a purely legal nature are at least preserved in the pages of the GREEN BAG.
