The sort of curses they indulged in meanwhile, I need not describe again. They were essentially the same as they had hitherto vented, save that one or two of them growing a little humorous, cried out occasionally "a speech from Professor Allen"—putting a peculiar emphasis on the professor.
The Committee busied themselves in furnishing two sleighs in which I was to be conveyed away, and also in appeasing the more ruffianly part of the multitude with cigars and such other articles as they choose to call for at the bar of the hotel. One of the sleighs was stationed at the back door of the hotel, and the other about two miles from Fulton. The plan was that I should get into the former and be driven to the latter, in which I was to be taken post haste to Syracuse—a distance of about twenty-five miles. The mob, however, suspected some of the details of the plan, and consequently every time I appeared at the back door, they made a rush at me seeking to wreak their vengeance. I escaped their violence, however, by stepping adroitly out of the way. And, as the tavern keeper had assured them that if they attempted violence upon me while I was under his roof, they would do it at their peril, many of them left, and I, at last, succeeded in reaching the sleigh at the back door and was driven off in safety. The mob unable to overtake me, still shouted a last imprecation.
For this said Sleigh ride, I paid Six dollars, about £1. 4s.; so I was robbed, if not murdered.
I will now describe the leader of the mob—Henry C. Hibbard. I will do it in short. This man is a clumsy-fisted, double jointed, burly-headed personage, about six feet in height, with a countenance commingling in expression the utmost ferocity and cunning. Hibbard is not a fool—but a knave. He is essentially a low bred man, and vulgar to the heart's core.
Some idea of the calibre of the man may be had in the fact that in his published Article in defense of the mob, he makes use of such expressions as "g'hals," "g'halhood" and the like.
He has great perseverance of character as is evinced in the fact that though I was several days behind the time at which I was expected to arrive in Fulton, he or his deputies never failed to be daily at the Cars so as to watch my arrival, and thus be in season with the onslaught.
This man set himself up, and was indeed so received by the Elder and Mrs. King as their friend, counsellor, and adviser. A confirmation this, of what I have already said about the commingling of the "respectable" and the base. His mobocratic movements, however, it is but just to say, were unknown to the Elder and his wife until after the onslaught had been made. Mrs. King however did not deprecate the mob until its history had become somewhat unpopular, by reason of many of the "respectable" men becoming ashamed at last that they had been found in such company as Hibbard's. And even the Elder himself, though he deprecated the mob, still characterized it as the "just indignation of the public."
Hibbard, I have already said, published a written defence of the mob. The article was headed "The Mary Rescue."—and a most remarkable document it was—remarkable, however, only for its intense vulgarity, its absurd contradictions, and its ridiculous attempts at piety and poetry.
Me, he describes as the "Professor of Charms" and "Charming Professor," once—the "tawney charmer."
Hibbard's article is not by me; and, if it were, its defilement is such that I could not be tempted to give it at length. Laughable and lamentable as the article is in the main, I still thank Hibbard for some portions of it, and especially for that one which substantiates the charge which I have brought against the "respectable men of Fulton." Thus ends the mob.