File:The head of Joaquin Murietta not taken - A strange Story - Daily Alta California, Volume 4, Number 223, 23 August 1853.jpg

LOS ANGELES, August 16, 1653.

The steamer which leaves this evening from San Pedro, will take up about fifty tons of fruit, and for the next three months two steamers would find constant employment in conveying to your city the produce of our vineyards. Grapes have never been so abundant as in this season, and I may say the same regarding pears, figs and peaches. The fruit speculators pay ten cents per pound for the first shipment: but between this and November any quantity can be obtained at two and three cents per pound. I wish you could get our fruit in its freshness; but I very much fear that by the time it reaches San Francisco it is almost stale. It affords some amusement to our citizens, the reading of the various accounts of the capture and decapitation of the "notorious Joaquin Murieta." The humbug is so transparent that it is surprising any sensible person can be imposed upon by the various statements of the affair which have appeared in the prints. The very act of the Legislature authorizing the raising of a company "to capture the fire Joaquins, to wit, Joaquin Carrillo, Joaquin Murrieta., Josquin Valenzuela," etc. etc. was in itself a farce, and these names were inserted in order to kill the bill. Does a Legislature soberly and seriously outlaw five men, without previous conviction, and whose names not one member in ten had ever even heard mentioned! Joaquin Murieta is undoubtedly a very great scoundrel, though the old saying that the "devil is not so black as he is painted," will apply to him as well as to the gentleman below. At the time of the murder of General Bean, at the Mission San Gabriel, Joaquin Murieta was strongly suspected of the crime, and efforts were made to arrest him, but he managed to escape; and since then every murder and robbery in the country has been attributed to Joaquin. Sometimes it is Joaquin Carrillo that has committed all these crimes; then it is Joaquin Murieta, and then Joaquin something else; but always Joaquin; and until now that name strikes such terror that several respectable citizens of this county, who have the misfortune to bear that terrible name, are meditating a change by act of Legis ature. The very gentlemanly judge of the second judicial district, is Joaquin Carrillo, and the boys cry after him in the street there goes Joaquin." Pleasant, is it?

A few weeks ago a party of native Californians and Sonorians started for the Tulare Valley, for the express and avowed purpose of running mustangs. Three of the party have since returned, and report that they were attacked by a party of Americans, and that the balance of their party, four in number, had been killed; that Joaquin Valenzuela, one of them, was killed as he was endeavoring to escape, and that his head was cut off by his captors as a trophy. It is too well known that Joaquin Murieta is not the person killed by Capt. Harry Love's company at the Ranche pass. The bead recently exhibited in Stockton bears no resemblance to that individual, and this is positively asserted by those who have seen the real Marieta and the spurious bead. All the accounts wind up by recommending the continuance of Love's company in service. All right.

The term of service was about expiring, and although I will not say that interested parties have gotten up this Joaquin expedition, yet such expeditions can generally be traced to have an origin with a few speculators. General Richardson, the U. S. Marshal for the Northern District, came down on the Golish yesterday for Hinton the mail robber. He will return on the same steamer this afternoon with the prisoner. This section of the State shows evident symptoms of improvement. The immigrants are settling all about, and the rancheros are building themselves more substantial houses than those they have heretofore inhabited, and are also cultivating the soil to a greater extent