A sound of smashing glass, blows, curses. A man rushed
into the street holding the enrollment books above his head:
"Here are your names, men--the list of white slaves!"
The mob tore the sheets from his grasp and fell on them like hungry
wolves. In ten minutes the books were only scraps of paper trampled into
the filth of Third Avenue. Wherever a piece could be seen men and women
stamped and spit on it.
They smashed the wheel and furniture into kindling wood, piled it in the
middle of the room and set fire to it. No policemen or firemen were
allowed to approach. Every officer of the law, both civil and military,
had been chased and beaten and disappeared.
Half the block was in flames before the firemen could break through and
reach the burning buildings.
Down the Avenue, the maddened mob swept with resistless impulse,
jelling, cursing, shouting its defiance.
"Down with the Abolitionists!"
"Hang Horace Greeley on a sour apple tree!"
"To the _Tribune_ Office!"
Howard, a reporter of the _Tribune_, was recognized:
"Kill him!"
"Hang him!"
The mob seized the reporter, dragged him to a lamp post and were about
to put the rope around his neck when a blow from a cobblestone felled
him to the sidewalk, the blood trickling down his neck.
A man bending over his body, shouted to the crowd:
"He's dead--we'll take the body away!"
A friend helped and they carried him into a store and saved his life.
Pages:
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467