Henshaw was re-elected. After Ruef had been convicted and the Appellate Court had refused to grant him a new trial, Henshaw, before the briefs had been filed in the matter of the appeal from the Appellate to the Supreme Court, signed an order granting Ruef a new hearing. See [Chapter XXIX].
See decisions in Edson vs. The Southern Pacific Co., 133 Cal. Reports and 144 Cal. Reports.
Nor was this criticism confined to San Francisco; it was general throughout the State. The Sacramento Bee, in describing the conditions prevailing at San Francisco, said:
“In the hold-ups which are now terrorizing the people of San Francisco the citizens are seeing the effects of a loose or dishonest municipal administration. The form of lawlessness now prevailing in San Francisco follows upon bad local government as inevitably as night follows day.”
Definite figures, alleged to be the graft schedule enforced in the San Francisco tenderloin after the fire, were published. The Chronicle of April 24, 1907, said on this score:
“After the great disaster of last April, or so soon as the new tenderloin began to build up and the Barbary Coast district began to establish itself, a schedule of prices for protected vice was formulated. This schedule has been rigidly adhered to. In the case of houses of ill-fame, the proprietors were required to pay the policemen on the beat the sum of $5, the sergeants $15, the captains $25, and the chief of police $75 to $100 every week for the privilege of conducting their nefarious business. The gambling houses were assessed according to their ability to pay, but the average price for police protection, according to Heney, was about the same as the houses of prostitution. The dives along Pacific street and in the Barbary Coast district were required to pay $50 every week to the police captain and the chief, those two functionaries presumably dividing the money. The sporting saloons where women of the night life congregate were taxed a similar amount.”