A. Yes. Captain Murray, of the Fire Department, was present at the time; he made the complaint against the two men.
Q. You were a prisoner, and standing in the middle of the station-house floor while McLaughlin was raining blows at you?
A. Yes. “Now,” I said to him, “McLaughlin, look here, I never felt myself placed in the position that I do to-night; no man has ever done to me what you did to-night, and I advise you to let up. Standing here, if I am assaulted again, you or I will have to die; one man of two will be taken out of this station-house dead, and so, stop.” At this time I had my fighting blood up, and had recovered from the collapse I was thrown into. I said, “You may think me not protected here; but I have a good strong arm, and if you assault me again, as sure as there is a God in Heaven, I will never take my hands from your throat until you kill me or I kill you.” He kept on blustering, but never struck me again.
Q. What was the nature of the punishment?
A. He had brass-knuckled me.—(Vol. iv., p. 4,527).
Q. You say he desisted at that moment?
A. He desisted at that moment when I said he or I would have to die if he did not stop. I was then allowed to go into his private room and wash some of the mud and gutter off my face and hands. I could not wash the blood off, because that was coming down in torrents; and when I was going downstairs, somebody kicked me or punched me severely in the back, and I feel the effects of it yet at times, and I suppose I always will. Then I was thrown into a cell bleeding, and by this time a second collapse had come over me, and I must have fainted in the cell.
Q. Did McLaughlin go into the cell?
A. No; he came down after me, after I was locked up, and made it clear he gloried in the fact that I was in that condition. So, fearing that some one would open the cell door during the night, when I would be in a faint—because I felt very weak from the loss of blood—I took out my note-book and wrote in it, “If I am found dead here to-morrow, I want it known I am murdered by Captain McLaughlin and his crowd.” I hid that in my stocking, that piece of bloody paper. I kept it for a long time, and I tried to find it to-day, but could not put my hands on it, and am very sorry I cannot put my hands on it.
Q. Were you persecuted any more that night?