11.50. From Eighteenth. We must leave; the mob is here with guns.
11.50. From Twentieth. Mob tearing up track on Eleventh Avenue.
11.58. The mob have just sacked a large gun-store in Grand Street, and are armed, and are on the way to attack us.
12.10. To Fifteenth. Send your men here forthwith.
12.35. From Twentieth. Send two hundred men forthwith to Thirty-fifth Street arsenal.
12.36. From Twenty-first. The mob have just broken open a gun-store on Third Avenue, between Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Streets, and are arming.
12.40. From Twenty-first. Send help—the crowd is desperate.
And so on.
Between these rapid telegrams asking for help, were others making and answering inquiries. And so it was kept up from daylight till midnight for three days in succession. These urgent calls for help coming from every quarter at the same time, would have thrown into inextricable confusion a less clear head than Acton's. It was a terrible strain on him, and had it continued a little longer, would have cost him his life. In the midst of it all he received anonymous letters, telling him he had but one more day to live.
But while the police head-quarters were thus crowded with business, and the commissioners were straining every nerve to meet the frightful state of things in the city, other means were being taken to add to their efficiency.