While it is true that there were some glib-tongued fellows who spoke the language without foreign accent, all of them of the lowest order of Democratic ward-politicians, of creatures skulking from the outstretched arm of avenging law; while the most degraded of the German population were represented; while it is also true that there were Irish, and Catholic Irish too,—industrious, sober, intelligent people,—who indignantly refused participation in these outrages, and mourned over the barbarities which were disgracing their national name; it is pre-eminently true,—proven by thousands of witnesses, and testified to by numberless tongues,—that the masses, the rank and file, the almost entire body of rioters, were the worst classes of Irish emigrants, infuriated by artful appeals, and maddened by the atrocious whiskey of thousands of grog-shops.
By far the most infamous part of these cruelties was that which wreaked every species of torture and lingering death upon the colored people of the city,—men, women, and children, old and young, strong and feeble alike. Hundreds of these fell victims to the prejudice fostered by public opinion, incorporated in our statute-books, sanctioned by our laws, which here and thus found legitimate outgrowth and action. The horrors which blanched the face of Christendom were but the bloody harvest of fields sown by society, by cultured men and women, by speech, and book, and press, by professions and politics, nay, by the pulpit itself, and the men who there make God's truth a lie,—garbling or denying the inspired declaration that "He has made of one blood all people to dwell upon the face of the earth"; and that he, the All-Just and Merciful One, "is no respecter of persons."
This riot, begun ostensibly to oppose the enforcement of a single law, developed itself into a burning and pillaging assault upon the homes and property of peaceful citizens. To realize this, it was only necessary to walk the streets, if that were possible, through those days of riot and conflagration, observe the materials gathered into the vast, moving multitudes, and scrutinize the faces of those of whom they were composed,—deformed, idiotic, drunken, imbecile, poverty-stricken; seamed with every line which wretchedness could draw or vicious habits and associations delve. To walk these streets and look upon these faces was like a fearful witnessing in perspective of the last day, when the secrets of life, more loathsome than those of death, shall be laid bare in all their hideous deformity and ghastly shame.
The knowledge of these people and their deeds was sufficient to create a paralysis of fear, even where they were not seen. Indeed, there was terror everywhere. High and low, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, all shivered in its awful grasp. Upon stately avenues and noisome alleys it fell with the like blackness of darkness. Women cried aloud to God with the same agonized entreaty from knees bent on velvet carpets or bare and dingy floors. Men wandered up and down, prisoners in their own homes, and cursed or prayed with equal fury or intensity whether the homes were simple or splendid. Here one surveyed all his costly store of rare and exquisite surroundings, and shook his head as he gazed, ominous and foreboding. There, another of darker hue peered out from garret casement, or cellar light, or broken window-pane, and, shuddering, watched some woman stoned and beaten till she died; some child shot down, while thousands of heavy, brutal feet trod over it till the hard stones were red with its blood, and the little prostrate form, yet warm, lost every likeness of humanity, and lay there, a sickening mass of mangled flesh and bones; some man assaulted, clubbed, overborne, left wounded or dying or dead, as he fell, or tied to some convenient tree or lamp-post to be hacked and hewn, or flayed and roasted, yet living, where he hung,—and watching this, and cowering as he watched, held his breath, and waited his own turn, not knowing when it might come.
CHAPTER XIX
"In breathless quiet, after all their ills."
ARNOLD
A body of these wretches, fresh from some act of rapine and pillage, had seen Mrs. Franklin, hastening home, and, opening the hue and cry, had started in full chase after her. Struck by sticks and stones that darkened the air, twice down, fleeing as those only do who flee for life, she gained her own house, thinking there to find security. Vain hope! the door was battered in, the windows demolished, the puny barriers between the room in which they were gathered and the creatures in pursuit, speedily destroyed,—and these three turned to face death.
By chance, Surrey had his sword at his side, and, tearing this from its scabbard, sprang to the defence,—a gallant intent, but what could one weapon and one arm do against such odds as these? He was speedily beaten down and flung aside by the miscreants who swarmed into the room. It was marvellous they did not kill him outright. Doubtless they would have done so but for the face propped against the pillows, which caught their hungry eyes. Soldier and woman were alike forgotten at sight of this dying boy. Here was a foeman worthy their steel. They gathered about him, and with savage hands struck at him and the bed upon which he lay.
A pause for a moment to hold consultation, crowded with oaths and jeers and curses; obscenity and blasphemy too hideous to read or record,—then the cruel hands tore him from his bed, dragged him over the prostrate body of his mother, past the senseless form of his brave young defender, out to the street. Here they propped him against a tree, to mock and torment him; to prick him, wound him, torture him; to task endurance to its utmost limit, but not to extinguish life. These savages had no such mercy as this in their souls; and when, once or twice he fell away into insensibility, a cut or blow administered with devilish skill or strength, restored him to anguish and to life.